


The Inferno Alliance: Origins Untold

by TooManyIdeas



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, How Do I Tag, M/M, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Superheroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-05-01 17:39:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooManyIdeas/pseuds/TooManyIdeas
Summary: OKAY so here we are...I know the title might be a bit cheesy and the plot is full of holes, but hey, at least I'm sending it out to people to edit for me!Anyways, this is going to be a novella (like the length of Stephen King's books like The Mist). I'm almost done with it, like three-quarters of the way done with the first draft.The main character's name is Charlie Owens. She's more commonly known as the Silver Wolf (but that's not all that important to the plot). She's a villain, but she's friends with Tony Falco, A.K.A. Inferno. He doesn't know that she's the Silver Wolf. Charlie's friends all know that she's the Silver Wolf, but theya) Didn't tell Tony who she isb) Didn't tell her that they'd figured it out. They're just having fun watching all of the drama.Please let me know what you think. Thanks for reading my (horrible) story!





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY so here we are...I know the title might be a bit cheesy and the plot is full of holes, but hey, at least I'm sending it out to people to edit for me!
> 
> Anyways, this is going to be a novella (like the length of Stephen King's books like The Mist). I'm almost done with it, like three-quarters of the way done with the first draft.
> 
> The main character's name is Charlie Owens. She's more commonly known as the Silver Wolf (but that's not all that important to the plot). She's a villain, but she's friends with Tony Falco, A.K.A. Inferno. He doesn't know that she's the Silver Wolf. Charlie's friends all know that she's the Silver Wolf, but they  
> a) Didn't tell Tony who she is  
> b) Didn't tell her that they'd figured it out. They're just having fun watching all of the drama.
> 
> Please let me know what you think. Thanks for reading my (horrible) story!

SUNDAY, MARCH 31, 2067  
The room was dead silent. One could feel the weight of the rock pressing down on themselves, despite the fact that the ceiling was several hundred feet above. There were a hundred or so people in the room, but not a single one moved. They could have been statues for all an outsider would care. The large pentagram on the wall opposite the door would have been enough to chase away outsiders, anyway. Every statue in the bare room with dirt walls sat on benches made of stone and wore red cloaks. Every statue in the bare room stared at the stone stage, stone-faced and immovable as a massive boulder. Every statue in the bare room soon heard the soft sound of someone quietly moving to the stage. This was the leader of the Order of the Red Cloak and he was preparing his armies for war.  
A red hood was pulled over a bald head, and it covered a scarred face. He turned to face his subjects. He called them subjects, not soldiers because he considered himself a king, not a general.  
The king spread his arms out wide. “My subjects!” His voice echoed mysteriously, despite the fact that the dirt walls, ceiling, and floor absorbed most of the sound. “The age of heroes is over! No more will we have to hide in the shadows! No more will we have to suppress our powers in public! No more!”  
This was followed by a brief chant of “No more! No more!” from the crowd.  
“Prepare to wage war on the world of heroes! Prepare to sacrifice yourselves in the name of your king! Prepare yourselves!” Again, the crowd echoed him twice before going silent again. “The age of heroes is about to come to an end! The age of Order will soon begin!”  
“Not on our watch!” An unknown female shouted. The doors slammed shut in a brilliant burst of white light.  
“You like red, don’t you?” A male voice added. “Well, here! Have some!” A beam of red light threw the king off of his feet. At first, he thought it was fire, but it didn’t burn. He was simply stunned.  
“Damn these heroes!” He spat. “Take them alive! We need them!”  
“Take them alive! Take them alive!” The crowd chanted.  
“That’s kind of creepy,” the male said.  
“Honey, they’re a cult. Creepy is their thing.” The female responded. The king wiped some blood away from his nose. He couldn’t hold this cavern much longer. It was taking too much energy. Thankfully, the heroes were apprehended quickly. The king and his subjects escaped into the lighthouse on the surface and took the next ferry to mainland Rhode Island. Of course, the king controlled the ferry, as well as half of the marina.  
The leader of the cult pulled down his hood, revealing a scarred, blistered face. “And who do we have here?”  
“Like we’ll ever tell you,” the female growled. She appeared to be the leader of the duo.  
The king leaned in close to the impertinent heroes. “Oh, you’ll tell me. And you’ll tell me a lot more than your names.” He turned to the ferryman, who was in the process of steering through a group of small sailboats with children inside. “Take us to point Beta. I don’t want word to get out.”  
“Yes sir,” The ferryman replied. He changed course and headed to a place that was known as House on the Rocks to outsiders. The king looked down his nose at the heroes that he’d tied up and chuckled darkly.  
“Oh, you’re going to tell me everything.”


	2. The Band

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof. I can think of at least one place in this chapter that people are gonna attack me over.
> 
> By the way, three asterisks (***) signals a change in the point of view.

The room had rough stone walls and a pentagram in the middle of the floor. Amber and I were helping Adrien’s parents up. “Where’s Charlie?” I asked. Mrs. Walker pointed down a long hallway on the far side of the basement. Adrien, Amber, and I sprinted down the hallway while Victor turned into the telepath so he could get the Walkers back to the island undetected. I could Hear Tony fighting above us, and I hoped that he was okay. The kid was a good fighter, but he had the common sense of a drunk puppy. We turned the corner and there was Charlie and some guy in a red cloak. Charlie was barely conscious, bleeding from several painful-looking cuts, and she was chained to the ceiling. The man turned towards us when we entered, and he held his hand up as if he was waving at us. But then the floor underneath my feet moved. I overbalanced and fell to the ground. Hundreds of tiny knives cut into my hands as they slid across the rough ground.  
“Jay…” Charlie’s voice was hardly a whisper, but the room was quiet enough for me to hear it. Amber didn’t even have to move in order to command the shadows in the dark room move. I’d never thought that a short, blonde girl like her could look so intimidating.  
***  
Maybe I should back up a little and let you know what’s happening here. My friend, Jayden, jumped the gun a little. Okay, a lot. Just under 50 years ago, people began getting superpowers. Most powers are pretty useless or unconventional, so people have to get creative if they wanted to make a difference in the world. Only about sixty percent of the world’s population have powers–that’s a little over 4 and a half billion people, by the way–and of that sixty percent, only about eight hundred thousand people have powers that are useful in a fight. Regardless, things started to get out of control. People wanted more power. Fame. Money. Not that they’re to blame. In a world where everyone’s considered extraordinary and unique, how do you stand out without using your powers? So, to fight this new wave of crime and corruption, NATO got together and made a constitution for powers, called the Hero Treaty. The Hero Treaty consists of a few dozen rules, including stuff like you need a license to use your powers in public. You can’t get your license until you turn fifteen. Once you get your license, you can’t use your powers in public unless you or someone around you is in danger. That’s right, folks, the government literally took the fun out of having superpowers.  
What does this have to do with the story, you may ask? Well...it’s important to know the rules, right? That way, you know how to find loopholes. That’s all I’ve been doing my entire life. Finding loopholes in the law and avoiding punishment, whether it’s inside or outside the Hero Treaty. Oh, I got into a fight and broke a kid’s nose? I was in danger, wasn’t I? Did I break an expensive vase? Whoops, it was an accident. I’m just a poor orphan kid and don’t have the money to pay for it. Wait, I sent a guy to the hospital? There were no witnesses? Then it wasn’t me. I mean, do I really look like the kind of girl who would do that?  
Now, this is usually where the main character inserts some tragic backstory as to why they’re evil so that they can get some big redemption arc later in the story. Not me. I steal things because I like to steal them, and if people get in my way, then I get rid of them. I’m a villain by night, regular kid by day. And by ‘regular kid’ I mean an orphan who doesn’t want to go to high school and who is best friends with Inferno, AKA the only hero who’s come close to beating me.  
No, he doesn’t know who I am. Neither do our friends. No one knows. No one can know, because they’d just get in the way. Regardless of whether they’re my friends or not, if they get in my way, I’ll treat them exactly like everyone else who gets in my way.  
On the first day of school, I laid down on the street at my bus stop. I used my backpack as a pillow and tried to get some sleep. Getting up at 5:30 had kind of messed with my sleep schedule. I’d just started to drift off when I felt someone poke my head. I ignored him and tried to get back to sleep. He poked me again.  
“This doesn’t end well for you,” I said, opening one eye and looking the kid up and down. His messy black hair was falling in his eyes–he needed a haircut. And a breath mint. The kid’s breath smelled like a campfire. “Oh, hullo, Tony.”  
“The bus is here,” He replied. I raised my head enough to see the bus turning the corner, then groaned and got to my feet. I finally noticed that Tony was wearing his suit under a sweatshirt and sweatpants.  
“Your suit’s inside out,” I said calmly after a second of silence.  
“And you’re missing an earring,” He said, equally calm. My hands shot up to my ears and I cursed when I realized that he was right. Then I shrugged. No use crying over spilled milk, right?  
“Oh, well. Guess I’ll just wear one earring today.” I jumped up the steps to the bus as soon as the doors opened. Tony sauntered down the aisle, hardly glancing at me as he passed by and sat down on the other side of the aisle one seat behind me. The bus drove for maybe five more seconds before it stopped at the next street corner. This place was known in our friend group simply as The Four Way Intersection It was where Frigate Street and Beacon Avenue intersected. It was pretty much the meeting place for whenever we wanted to go somewhere.  
Amber and Victor thundered up the three stairs to the bus, arguing about something to do with who ate the last bagel. I couldn’t hear much over the music playing in my headphones. Not that I cared anyways. They argued over stupid stuff like that every day, and to be honest, it was usually pretty annoying. Victor sat behind me and Amber sat next to Tony. They argued for the rest of the bus ride.  
School was as boring as usual. New year, same boring routine. Stand in the entrance and wait for the bell. Go up three flights of stairs and across the building to my locker. Sit for ninety minutes in the stifling heat. Get up. Go to advisory (it’s like homeroom, but it’s between first and second period). Go second period. Every class on the first day, we went over the syllabus. I fell asleep in my first two classes. The only interesting thing that happened in the morning was when Jayden showed up to school. He’d shaved his afro off (he only cut his hair once every four years). Now his dark hair was like a shadow on his head.  
My third-period class was actually interesting. Emerging technologies. I don’t know why they call it that, because the technology they teach us about “emerged” almost fifty years ago. We were talking about ourselves for five minutes each. Now, most kids didn’t seem to find that interesting, but I like learning about people. It’s less of a “let’s get to know each other” than a “how easy would it be to pickpocket you in the near future?” (what? I’m a villain. I do villainy things. Don’t judge me).  
Then the worst part of the class came. The teacher called my name. I swore under my breath as I stood up. It’s not that I have stage fright or anything, it’s just that no one likes presenting in front of the class. Except for Tony, but he’s already so famous that he should be considered an outlier. Everyone already knows everything about him, anyway.  
“Uh, hullo. My name is Charlie Owens and, um…” I trailed off. Again, I don’t have stage fright, there’s just something unsettling about a room full of twenty-something teenagers staring at you while you’re trying to talk. “And I’m from Jamestown.” A few people scoffed. Jamestown kids are considered stuck-up rich kids. I noticed one kid in the back staring at me intently. It kind of creeped me out. I raised an eyebrow at him and continued. “I...guess there’s not much to say about me. I’m a normal kid. I...I like the color blue, I dr–I draw a lot, and, um...and I like to go fishing during the summer–”  
“She probably fishes on a yacht!” Some kid yelled. A few other people laughed. I rolled my eyes.  
“Actually, I take my kayak out on the bay and fish near Heads Beach a lot. I also play–”  
“–watch her say polo. That sounds like a rich kid sport,” the same kid said.  
“That’s enough, Richard,” The teacher snapped. “Charlie, please continue.” I quickly finished the rest of my presentation. The entire time, that one boy kept staring at me. I cornered him after the bell rang.  
“Do you have a problem?” I asked.  
“Do you?” He shot back, trying to shove past me. I blocked his path again.  
“You were staring at me the whole time I was talking!”  
“So was everyone else! Now move!” In a couple of seconds, he had disappeared into the crowded hallway. I scoffed in annoyance and went to my next class.  
After school, I got a ride home from Victor and Amber’s mom. Amber sat up front. One thing I’d noticed over the years was that she looked a lot more like her dad than her mom.  
“I don’t like this, she said, gesturing to a blue house with the red stairs leading up to the porch. It was on the corner of my street. “It used to be all red, and now instead of the red house, I have to turn at the blue house!” I laughed as if I hadn’t heard that sentence a million times before. Most parents’ brains have probably been fried by the stress of having to raise kids because they always seem to be one second away from exploding, and they tend to forget things in as little as five minutes. Except for my foster dad and Mister Williams–Victor and Amber’s father.  
Speaking of the Williams family, they were moving from the downtown area to a place on Gondola. Their street was directly behind our house, so if they got permission from the people that lived behind us, they could just cut across a few lawns and walk into our backyard.  
I opened the door. “IS ANYONE HOME?” I shouted. My foster dad, Chris, volunteers on Car 5 at the fire department, so if he wasn’t home then he was out on a run. There was no car in the driveway, but I just liked to be sure. When No one replied, I turned my music up and walked into the kitchen. For some reason, the school thought that ten thirty was an acceptable time to eat lunch. I hadn’t had anything since then, so I was hungry.  
***  
Leaving Charlie Owens alone usually leads to trouble. Mostly villainous trouble, but we knew that Tony would stop her. Amber, Jayden, and I had discovered Charlie’s secret identity several years ago, but we’d decided to not let her know–and to not tell Tony–because watching them fight as hero and villain and then be best friends five seconds later is amusing. Besides, to our knowledge, she’d never really done anything beyond breaking a few bones. The people she robber were jerks, anyways, so we had no real problem with letting her do her thing.  
After we dropped Charlie off, I opened the book that was sitting on my lap. Some movement by the center console caught my eye. It took every bit of strength I had to not look up. “I’m not falling for it again, Amber.”  
“Aw, you’re no fun!”  
“Well, sucks to suck.” I turned the page calmly. My mom just ignored us. I got the feeling that she and my dad were getting sick of our constant meme-related pranks. Once, Amber and I had T-posed on either side of their bed until they woke up, then we ran out of the room without saying a single word. It was four A.M. We got our phones taken away for that, but it was worth it.  
Presently, my mom stopped the car on the side of the street next to our house. A moving truck was taking up most of the space in the driveway. The three of us got out and started helping Dad unpack. He was almost done, so he told us to go get our rooms ready. He handed me a large box with my name on it.  
“Down the stairs and to the left, Vic,” My dad said as he handed Amber her box. “And down the stairs and to the right for you.”  
“You got it, dad!” I said.  
“Race you!” Amber skipped across the small front yard with me half a step behind her and slammed the door in my face. I groaned, opened it up, and dashed down the stairs after her. “I won!” She was already in her room.  
“No fair! You closed the door on my face!” I said.  
“Oh, stop complaining!” She laughed and shut the door to her room. I opened the door to my new room and dropped my box on my bed. It was pretty plain and dark, but not for long. I Began to unpack. There were two doors, one on either side of the room. I opened one up, hoping for the closet, and found a bathroom. There was a massive spider on the toilet seat. I shut the door and turned to the closet, where I hung up all of my clothes. Once I’d unpacked a little bit, I crept into the bathroom armed with a giant book and a fake sword that I’d used for Halloween once. The spider was now on the sink. Amber appeared at my shoulder.  
“What do you want?”  
“I want to know what you’re doing.”  
“I’m...er...n-none of your business!” I shoved her out of my room and locked the door. While I was distracted, the spider crawled onto my sword, which I had dropped on the floor in my hurry to get my sister out of my room. I did not notice this until it was too late. The spider crawled onto my hand. I screamed and swatted the spider off, dropped my book on top of it, then jumped on the book. Just to make sure.  
“Is it a spider?” Amber asked. Her voice was slightly muffled through the door.  
“How could you tell?”  
“A good magician never reveals her secrets!” She laughed.  
“Shut up, you’re not funny!” I said. I grabbed the bag containing my toothbrush and toothpaste and went into the bathroom. There, I leaned against the sink and stared at myself in the mirror. This was usually the part where the angst-ridden teen went off on some sort of internal monologue about how they didn’t really know themselves, but not me. I know exactly who I am, and I never become anyone else unless I’m mocking them. Or cosplaying. Cosplaying is always super easy for a guy who can shapeshift.  
I looked at the blond hair, the green eyes, and the tan skin. I considered this my 'base form.' I always changed my appearance just a little bit every day, depending on my mood. I ran my hands through my hair, which got longer brighter. My eyes turned blue, and I got taller and stronger-looking. I smirked, then exited my room and went out to the moving van to see if there was anything left to unpack.  
***  
I jumped onto the bus after school and took a seat at the front. Better to sit in front with all the teachers’ pets than in back with the meth heads who do coke lines off of the bus seats and stuff. I leaned my head against a window, despite the fact that it was shaking enough to turn my brain to mush. Once I got off the bus, I walked up Frigate Street and turned onto Gondola.  
I’d been told by a few different people that I’m intimidating. I usually walk with my hands in my pockets or curled into fists, and I take long strides. It’s probably a combination of that and my ‘resting face’ that does it. It’s sure as hell not my height, though. I’m 5’ 6” and some of the guys at school are already, like, seven feet tall.  
I was surprised to see a moving truck in front of the house across the street. I recognized a girl in the doorway as one of my classmates, but I didn’t know the other kid. He was tall and handsome enough, but he looked like he hadn’t cut his hair in a while. The kid noticed me and walked over. I was trying to avoid conversation, so tried to ignore him, but the boy yelled at me to get my attention. I turned around and saw...myself. Ah, so this guy’s a shapeshifter. I thought. And then: Is my hair really that messy?  
“So?” The boy asked in an okay-sounding imitation of my voice. “Is it like looking in a mirror?”  
I frowned. This kid could be a problem. Especially if he won’t leave me alone. “More like a funhouse mirror, but okay.”  
The kid laughed and ran his hand through his (my?) hair again, and it changed to the color blue. In less than three seconds, I was looking at an entirely different person. “My name’s Victor Williams. And you are?” He stuck out his hand for me to shake.  
“Deaf,” I replied, making a show of turning my hearing aids off and turning away.  
***  
I’d been trying to unpack all of my stuff, but I got bored of that quickly, so I tried to find Victor. Of course, he was already talking to the boy that lived across the street. The other boy seemed annoyed. He was turning away from Victor when he noticed me. He nodded his head quickly and disappeared inside his house. Something about the boy seemed...off, but I couldn’t tell what it was. Victor was trying to brush past me, but I caught his arm.  
“Hold it, Victor,” I said slowly. “How did you annoy him that badly?”  
“Well,” Victor said somewhat nervously, “you know how they say that imitation is the highest form of flattery?”  
I glared at him. “You didn’t.”  
He laughed awkwardly. “I did, yeah.”  
“I swear to God, you’re going to get a restraining order put on you one of these days.”  
“But it hasn’t happened yet!”  
“But it will!”  
“But it hasn’t!” He was grinning from ear to ear.  
“You like him, don’t you?” I asked. Victor nodded, still smiling. “You’re not gonna stop talking to him until he likes you back?” Another nod. “Fine, just don’t annoy him too much.” A third nod. “Now stop being so lazy and help us unpack!”  
***  
Being at school after the final bell has rung is a surreal experience. Everything is dead quiet and it’s all empty. I’d stayed after to help my math teacher make copies of work for worksheets and tests (it counts for extra credit). Afterward, I had an hour and a half to kill because Jayden was giving me a ride home once he was done with soccer practice. I was waiting outside of the locker room, waiting for him to walk out. I was trying to scare him. For the past two days, I’d managed to scare him and catch it on tape. I was planning on making a compilation and posting it.  
Three or four players passed me. I held my finger to my lips and they kept walking, only shooting me a few confused glances on the way. As soon as I saw Jayden, I lunged at him and yelled “Boo!” In my mind, I’d been a bit more intimidating, but it’s kind of hard for me, a scrawny-ish 5’8” kid, to look intimidating next to his 6’ 2” friend.  
Regardless, Jaden jumped about a foot in the air and shrieked loud enough to make someone’s ears bleed. “What the hell, man?” His deep voice certainly did not match his girly scream. “I’ll get you back for that.”  
“How?”  
“You’ll see.” And with that ominous remark, he speed-walked away. I had to jog to keep up with him. He kept going faster every time I caught up with him. Soon we were racing through the halls, out the door, to his car. We threw our bags in the back and got in the front seats.  
I reached for the radio, then quickly drew my hand away to avoid being slapped by Jayden. “Can I please pick the music!”  
“No! You’ll just want to listen to country!”  
“It’s good music, though!”  
“No, it’s not. It’s music white people try to make sound good. And they fail miserably, by the way. Besides, the driver gets to pick the music. The passenger–”  
“–the passenger shuts his mouth. I know, I know.”  
Jayden pulled onto the main road. “Y’know, you would be able to pick your own music if you hadn’t gotten your license suspended.”  
“That accident was–well...it was accidental!” I complained. “I was chasing a villain!”  
“And you ran a red light.”  
“Yeah, but–”  
“–no one’s above the law, Tony.”  
“Shut it. You sound like my dad.”  
Jayden glanced at me before turning back to the road. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to sound like your dad if you weren’t such an idiot, Anthony.”  
We got coffee for everyone on the way home, then went to Charlie’s house. Inside her large garage, there was a drum set and the rest of our band equipment. In our band, I write the songs (I was banned from dinging after we tried to perform one song), Victor plays the guitars, Charlie plays the drums, and Amber and Jayden sing. Charlie wasn’t in the garage, which wasn’t odd. She was usually the last one to show up to band practice, despite the fact that they were held at her house. Victor and Amber showed up a few minutes later via the back door, muttering something about cutting through someone’s yard. Jayden was banging on the garage door that led into the house. Charlie finally opened the door, holding two large bags of chips.  
“Sweet, you got the coffee.” She put the chips down on a small table that was cluttered with sheet music, old coffee cups that no one threw away, and two microphones. Charlie tossed them to Jayden and Amber, who both caught them effortlessly. Then she took a sip of the coffee that had her name on it (Jayden and I had scribbled names on them in marker on the way here) and sat down at the drum set. I sat down at another table, took out the book that I kept my songs in, and started writing. However, I have a very short attention span, and I couldn’t focus on writing songs that particular day, so I set my book aside and watched them practice.  
I usually stopped the practice here and there to give advice and stuff, but we seemed the have this song down. I found myself getting distracted by Amber. I watched on with an awestruck expression as she hit every note. Her blonde hair seemed to catch just enough light in Charlie’s musty garage to make a halo around her head. I still couldn’t believe that I was dating the prettiest girl in the entire school. The police scanner that I always keep in my bag beeped loudly, bringing me out of my own head. My friends stopped playing long enough for me to hear about a robbery taking place near the library.


	3. Adrien Walker

“That’s weird. We usually don’t get much activity on the island,” Jayden said.  
“Tourists are still here. It’s probably just some out-of-state psycho that doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,” I replied as I opened the garage door. I ducked under it and rushed to start Jayden’s car.  
“Hey! If you crash that thing, you’re buying me my dream car!” Jayden shouted. I winced. His dream car was expensive.  
“Bet!” I yelled back. I peeled out of the driveway and sped down North Road. Who would want to steal from a library? I asked myself. I mean, of all the other stores on the island, this idiot had to steal a book? What, is it some DnD-playing nerd who needed some book that only that particular library had? He could have just ordered it...library books are free if you have a card.  
There were dozens of cop cars outside the library. “Ah, Inferno! We’re glad you’re here!” One of the officers said.  
“Did I miss the party or something?” I asked.  
“No, it’s turned into a hostage situation. The governor is in there!”  
“Oh, this could not get any more cliché,” I muttered to myself, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Right. What does he want?”  
“We don’t know. We heard that he’s making a bunch of ridiculous demands, though.”  
“Great. Er, you guys stay out here until I give the signal, alright?”  
“Wh-signal? What signal?” The officer asked. I was already halfway through the library doors. Once inside the library, I tried to think of a plan. And a signal to give the officers. I looked around for a second before remembering that the governor would be talking in the meeting room. There were three ways into the meeting room. I tried the two that were inside, and both were barricaded, so I went around to the back of the library near the playground and looked into the glass windows. The blinds were over them.  
“Oh, I am so going to regret this,” I muttered. Then I held my hands out and focused. Two massive jets of flame melted the glass just enough for me to jump through. A bullet grazed my arm. It barely broke the skin, but it was hot enough to make me scream in pain. “Hey, buddy, put the gun down!” The man, who was dressed all in black with a ski mask on, held on to the gun stubbornly. And it just got more cliché. I thought.  
“Shut up! Hands over your head!” The guy screamed. His voice was high pitched and shaky.  
“Like this?” I asked, putting my hands up. I curled them into fists as I did so.  
“Exactly! Now–” The guy began. I opened my hands quickly and two small fireballs flew at the guy. One hit his arm and the other hit his gun. The gun clattered to the ground as the guy howled and swatted his arm. I ran over to the other side of the room, banged on the window three times, and turned back to the guy. In less than ten seconds, two dozen police officers swarmed the room. They cleared out the governor and the civilians who had come to hear her talk while I kept the gunman busy. He swung his good arm at me, but he was obviously untrained. I ducked his swing easily and stuck my leg out. He tripped over it and fell to the ground beside the melted gun.  
“Done, done, and done. Now, if you don’t mind, I was kind of busy,” I told the chief of police.  
“Now wait a second–” He began, but I was already climbing out the same way I’d come in.  
“Oh, and I’m sorry about this! I can give some money to fix it and stuff!” I waved awkwardly and ran back to Jayden’s car. Well, that was a success.  
***  
Tony was gone for maybe half an hour. Once he came back, we finished up practice and went home. Of course, Tony lives on the northern tip of the island and I live downtown, and I just had to give him a ride home (according to him). And of course, his parents insisted that I stayed over for dinner, so I didn’t get home until it was past dark. I was driving on Conanicus Avenue, between Lincoln Avenue and Friendship Street. The bushes on the right side of the road trembled, and a short person cloaked in black clothing tumbled onto the street. I figured it was probably Charlie. I swerved to the side and laid on the horn, swearing hard enough that, had my mother been in the car with me, she would have grounded me for life. In the rearview mirror, I watched Tony jump out of the bush and throw a fireball across the street. I rolled my eyes and sped up.  
“Oh, so he needs a ride home because walking will take too long but he can show up on the other side of the damn island in less than five minutes. Sure, sure,” I growled.  
***  
I’d been robbing a particularly snobby rich family that had recently moved in when Inferno interrupted me. Tony is annoying in his day-to-day life, but he’s downright infuriating when he’s in full-on hero mode.  
“Stop there, villain!” He demanded in a fake deep voice.  
“Bite me, matchstick,” I snapped in an equally fake voice.  
“Freeze! You have the right to remain–” He began. I turned on my heel and sprinted away empty-handed. “–ah. So that’s how that feels.” As I wondered what he meant by that, I picked my way across the immaculate garden and stumbled through the bushes that separated the yard from the street. A car swerved around me and beeped really loudly.  
What a way to give away my position. I thought. I shouldered my empty backpack and sprinted across the street. My feet hardly made a noise on the concrete. I glanced behind me, which was a mistake. Something hit my knees, and I realized that I’d tripped over a small barrier. My shock quickly gave way to pain when I landed on my shoulder on a large rock near the beach. I laid there for a few minutes, completely stunned, as the pain rolled through my body in sync with the waves crashing on the beach. Searing heat rolled across my back and left side when a fireball landed just a few feet away from my head. I rolled onto my stomach and clambered to my feet, fighting to stay conscious. I needed to stay ahead of Tony, or he would know that I was the Silver Wolf (that name may or may not have been a direct result of me naming myself anonymously across various social media platforms).  
The outside dining area of a nearby restaurant stood on a deck that was a good six feet above the beach. I managed to stumble underneath this deck and collapse onto some sand near the back. As soon as I was sure Tony was gone, I crawled back out and drove myself home–I’d parked my car in the bank’s parking lot so it didn’t look too suspicious.  
I woke up the next morning feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking at me. I had a nasty bruise on my left temple that I could easily cover up with my long hair. My shoulder was all cut up, but it was a rainy September morning so it was still socially acceptable to wear long sleeves. I put on a baggy sweatshirt that I’d borrowed from (and never returned to) Jayden a while ago. I tiptoed down the stairs, careful to not wake Chris up, and made myself some breakfast. By the time I’d gotten ready, it was six o’clock. I was probably going to miss the bus again.  
After barely making the bus and falling asleep in my first two classes, I was ready to go home. Unfortunately, I still had two 90 minute classes before the day ended. I sat down at the same lunch table that I always sat at, in the same spot that I always sat in and immediately fell asleep. I was woken up seconds later by Victor sitting to my left, on the edge of the table. Amber sat across from him, and Tony, despite having plenty of room on the bench, sat right next to her. Jayden sat on my other side.  
“Long day or late night?” Victor asked me. My only reply was a groan.  
“Isn’t that my sweatshirt?” Jayden asked. “The one I gave you when it started raining that one day at sailing camp this summer?”  
“Shut up. It’s mine now,” I mumbled.  
“Fine, but only for today,” Jayden said, fake pouting. I let my head drop onto my arms (which were resting on the table) and closed my eyes.  
“Anyways, I was up late watching anime–” Victor said. We all groaned. He ranted about whichever anime he was watching every day. Despite our protests, Victor kept talking. “–and it was about this superhero who…” He trailed off.  
“Something wrong, Victor?” Amber asked in a sickly sweet voice. My head shot up. Amber only ever talked like that when she was making fun of someone. Victor was looking at someone on the other side of the cafeteria.  
“Er, no. And-and there was this superhero who–” He stopped himself again. I looked between him and the lunch line at the far end of the cafeteria. The only kid I recognized was that rude boy from yesterday.  
“Is...is he alright?” Tony asked. I poked Victor’s arm in an attempt to get his attention.  
“I’m not sure,” Amber replied. I looked back at the lunch line. The boy from yesterday was walking towards us. I hoped that he didn’t have any friends at the table that we were sitting at, because there was still some room, but I did not want to have to deal with him today.  
“Hey! Hey, you!” Victor shouted. “The kid from across the street!” The boy’s face reddened as he realized that Victor was yelling at him. I dropped my head back into my arms in disappointment.  
“Ah, the annoying shapeshifter,” he replied.  
“Do you have anyone to sit with today?” Victor asked.  
“No.”  
“Wanna sit with us?”  
“Not particularly,” He said. Then he noticed Amber glaring at him. “But I suppose it’s better than sitting alone.” He didn’t take his eyes off of Amber the whole time we were eating. But he wasn’t staring at her the way most guys did. He seemed wary. Cautious. I caught Amber looking at him the same way a few times.  
Finally, near the end of lunch, Amber slammed her hands down on the table, making Tony jump. I was half asleep, but I forced myself to wake up so I could watch the drama unfold. “Alright, I don’t get it. Why are you so weird?” Amber asked the kid (whose name was Adrien).  
“Amber! That’s so rude!” Tony said.  
“I’m not the weird one, you are!” Adrien argued.  
“You’re glowing!” Amber said.  
“And you’re covered in shadows!”  
“Well, at least I don’t look like the top of a Christmas tree!”  
“What the hell?” I whispered. Jayden shrugged.  
Adrien regained his composure. “What are your powers?” He asked.  
Amber looked confused by the question. “Uh, I-I can control shadows and stuff...why?”  
“Ah, that makes sense. I can control light and–and stuff.”  
“Wait, so you guys could, like, sense each other’s powers?” Victor asked. Amber and Adrien glanced at each other, then nodded.  
“Yeah, that’s not weird at all,” Tony scoffed.  
“Well, I don’t know how it works, either!” Amber said.  
Adrien shrugged. “Whatever. At least we know what’s wrong now.” And with that, he stood up and disappeared into the crowd of people leaving the cafeteria.  
“Hey! I wasn’t done talking to you!” Amber yelled after him.  
“So, Vic, why’d you invite him over?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.  
Victor’s face turned red. “N-no particular reason. I just...I just recognized him and decided to invite him.”  
“You’re sure it’s not for another reason?”  
“What other reason could there be?”  
“I don’t know.” I stopped at the bottom of the staircase known as the Spine. It went through all three floors of the school. “Why don’t you tell me?”  
“How about I kill you later?”  
“I’d like to see you try.” I walked up the spine and he flipped me off, then went to his class on the first floor. The rest of the school day was as boring as usual. I was just lucky that I didn’t get into any honors classes this year. I don’t think I could stand all the extra work.


	4. Partners

The next thing I knew, it was Christmas break, then midterms, then the end of March. School seemed to go by so slowly until this year. The thing is, in high school, it feels like the days last forever, but then you close your eyes for a second and you’re already three-quarters of the way through the year. Victor forced Adrien to hang out with us a little more, and I learned that he’d actually skipped a year. He’d gone from being an eighth grader to being a sophomore in high school. I was outraged. Not because he was smarter than me, but because he was taller than me.  
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I whined. “You’re two years younger than me! How am I still shorter than you?” Adrien shrugged. The kid didn’t really talk much. He did, however, often use the fact that none of us know ASL against us constantly. Whenever he got mad, he would sign at us rapidly, then act as if he’d won an argument. In response, we’d all started to learn sign language. That’s right, I was literally learning a whole language out of spite.  
Presently, we were sitting in math class, waiting for the teacher to give us our assigned seats. Adrien and I had immediately stuck together because neither of us knew–or liked–anyone else. Not that Adrien and I were on the best of terms, but we knew each other better than we knew anyone else in the class. Unfortunately, I got put next to an obnoxious girl who wouldn’t shut up. I just tuned her out and worked on my math worksheet. Once I was done, I raised my hand. The teacher came over.  
“Do you have a question?” She asked.  
“Yeah. What do I do when I’m done?”  
“NO WAY!” The girl sitting next to me yelled. “YOU’RE ALREADY DONE?”  
“Yeah,” I replied, my face heating up. I probably should have waited until someone else turned their worksheet in, but I was already bored. Now every person in the room was staring at me.  
“WHAT? NO WAY! HOW ARE YOU ALREADY DONE?”  
“Well, I actually focused on my work, so…” I took the next worksheet from my teacher and started working on it. The entire class cheered for me, and my face only grew hotter. I finished every worksheet and the homework with twenty minutes to spare.  
“Psst!” The girl next to me whispered. I nearly threw my pencil at her. That was the eighth time that day she’d asked me for help.  
“Yeah?” I whispered back.  
“How do you do this again?”  
“How do you–we are learning fractions! This is literally a review for something you’d learn in, like, third grade at the lastest!”  
The girl stared at me with a vacant expression for several seconds. Then she blinked, smiled brightly, and said, “Oh! I forgot.”  
I took a deep breath to stop myself from screaming at the top of my lungs. Of all the stupid airheads to be put next to, it had to be the girl who forgot what fractions are. I couldn’t believe that a high schooler was so stupid. “Okay, look.” I turned her paper so it was facing me and started writing. “The fraction now is twenty over forty, right?” The girl nodded. “So, what’s the biggest number that you can divide both twenty and forty by?”  
“Uh...two?” She said. My hopes fell even further. It was like I was talking to a toddler.  
“Er, sure. Two could work, but try to go bigger,” I said. She frowned at the paper. I could practically see the gears in her head working in overdrive to get the right answer.  
“T-ten?”  
“More.”  
“Twenty?” She guessed.  
“There we go! Now, twenty divided by twenty is…” I prompted.  
“Um, one, right?”  
“Yeah. And forty divided by twenty is…”  
“Two?”  
“Are you asking me or are you saying the answer?”  
“I’m saying the answer.”  
“Good, because it’s right.” I wrote down the new fraction. “Now, can we reduce this any more?”  
“I...don't think so, no.”  
“Then you’re done with the problem. Now keep doing that same thing for the rest of the problems.” I leaned back in my chair and plugged my earbuds in. Either the teacher failed to notice that I had my phone out during class, or she didn’t care.  
On the bus ride home, Amber and Victor told us that they had to go to some family event right after school, so we decided to cancel band practice. That left me home alone with nothing to do because Chris was at some party at the fire station. I left Chris a note telling him that I’d gone for a walk and changed into the all-black clothes that I kept hidden underneath my bed.  
***  
I got off of the school bus on the last stop, expecting to have a quiet afternoon to myself, but Tony was already waiting for me at my door. I took in his brightly colored suit and the bag sitting next to him. He’d been trying to get me to work with him for months, but I hadn’t caved until I realized that I would probably get to watch Tony and Charlie fight up close. To be honest, it sounded pretty entertaining.  
“Those better not be tights,” I said, gesturing at the bag. Tony laughed.  
“They’re not, don’t worry. They look a bit like mine.”  
“So...a fashion disaster?”  
“Shut up and get changed, man.” Tony’s suit looked like something that you could wear to a formal event, except it was decorated to look like flames. In the winter, he usually took off the jacket and just wore the shirt under a sweatshirt or something. Ten minutes later, I stepped out of my house, reassuring my mom that I’d be careful.  
“So? What do you think?” Tony asked. “Better than tights, right?”  
“I still feel stupid.” I was wearing a black, tight fit shirt that had flames painted on the lower half, as well as dark jeans and combat boots.  
“So I like the idea of matching uniforms. Sue me,” Tony said. I put on my aviators and a black sweatshirt that Charlie had yet to steal.  
“Let’s get out of here. We can go across the bridge to look for trouble,” I said.  
“But what if the Silver Wolf does something?” Tony asked.  
I thought back to the text I’d received while I was changing. Charlie had mentioned that she was going to go shopping in downtown Newport. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. I mean, what are the chances of her attacking Jamestown today?” Tony looked at me skeptically. “C’mon, man, let’s just go! What’s the worst that could happen?”  
“Fine,” Tony sighed. “But we’re not going the arcade while we’re working.”  
Fifteen minutes later, we were inside the arcade. Tony swore up and down that he’d seen someone dressed in all black walk in. It would be impossible to find this person, though. The arcade was crowded and the random flashing lights were distracting. We’d just gotten past the ticket counter when something shiny caught my eye. It didn’t look like it belonged to a game.  
“Hey, guys! What are you doing here?” I whirled around at the sound of Charlie’s voice. She was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and dark jeans. “And why are you wearing matching uniforms?” I glanced back at the shiny thing I’d seen. I just needed to make sure that it wasn’t what I thought it was. Unfortunately, I had seen it correctly. A man dressed in a black tracksuit aimed a gun at Tony. I tackled my friend to the ground, and Charlie seemed to sense the situation a split second before the gun fired. She dove to the ground. The bullet whizzed by my head and the gunshot rang out above all other noise.  
“ALRIGHT, EVERYONE FREEZE!” The guy bellowed. “I ONLY WANT INFERNO! NO ONE ELSE MOVE!” Without warning, he grabbed the person who was closest to him–and that happened to be Charlie. Instead of being afraid, she just looked mildly annoyed, as if being held hostage was a daily thing for her. “And if you try anything stupid, pretty boy, I’ll blow your girlfriend’s brains out.” I was frozen by panic and fear. Charlie was my closest friend, and if something happened to her when I could have done something to help, then I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Tony, however, remained calm, cool, and collected.  
“Actually, my girlfriend’s in Jamestown. That’s just my friend, and she’s perfectly capable of defending herself.”  
“Don’t get smart with me, or I’ll shoot your friend!”  
“You don’t wanna do that, man. You don’t want to get me mad.”  
“Oh, is that a threat? Coming from a hero? What’re you gonna do, set me on fire? You don’t have the guts.”  
“And neither do you,” Tony said. “So just drop the gun and–” Time seemed to slow down as the guy lowered his gun and shot Charlie in the foot. She screamed and collapsed. Before I could even react, Tony dragged the guy outside. I hadn’t even noticed him do it. The only clue that they’d been there at all was a burnt spot on the carpet and a silver gun a few feet away. I knelt down beside Charlie, whose screams had subsided to whimpers and gasps. Her eyes were squeezed shut in pain.  
“Charlie, can you hear me?” I asked as I took my sweatshirt off and rolled my sleeves up. People were starting to crowd around us. “Hey! Give her some room!” I demanded. No one listened to me. I didn’t know whether it was because I’m black or because I’m just a kid. It was more than likely a combination of both. I heard sirens in the distance. “Charlie! Say something!” I took her shoe off, put my hand on top of her wound, and focused.  
“Ow,” Charlie managed. I breathed a sigh of relief and let my power flow into my hand. After a few seconds, I felt the bullet slide out of her foot. I let it drop to the ground and kept working. I healed Charlie as much as I could, ignoring the suggestions and complaints from the people around me.  
“Uh, in case you guys didn’t notice, I do know what I’m doing, and I just healed her. Please give her some room to breathe,” I said. The crowd grudgingly moved out of the way while I helped Charlie sit on top of the ticket counter.  
“I’m fine, Jayden,” Charlie insisted. “He only shot me in the foot.”  
“Which you need to walk.”  
“Eh. I’ll recover.”  
“Yeah, thanks to me.” I gave Charlie her shoe back. She frowned at it.  
“Shame. I liked these shoes.” She looked out the window. “What do you think Tony’s doing to that poor guy?”  
I grinned. “Probably not setting him on fire. He’s an old-school hero. He doesn’t ever hurt people on purpose, even if they deserve it.”  
“Yeah, but at least he has good morals.”  
“True.” I nearly made a comment about how Charlie should be the last one to talk about morals, but then I remembered that she didn’t know that we knew about her being the Silver Wolf.  
“Ah, speak of the devil.” She pointed out the window. Tony was dragging the man by the collar. He appeared to be unconscious.  
“Oh Lord, what did he do?”  
“Let’s go find out!” Charlie slid off of the counter.  
“No, Charlie, wait–” I tried to stop her, but she was too fast. As soon as her foot hit the ground, she winced and collapsed. I put her back on the counter.  
“Charlie, you may be good at everything you do, but you are so stupid,” I told her.  
“Oh, haha,” Charlie groaned. “That’s real funny coming from the guy who agreed to wear that.” She gestured at my shirt.  
“Touche.”  
By this time, Tony had dragged the guy into the arcade and the police had arrived. “Ah. Charlie. You’re looking better.” He sounded slightly winded.  
“Did you really beat up that guy because he shot me?” She said condescendingly. “I could have handled it!”  
“Do you consider getting shot in the foot ‘handling it,’ Charlie?” Tony asked. Charlie shrugged.  
“Maybe it was part of my plan.”  
“If your plan was to die today,” I countered. While Charlie and I glared at each other, the people in the room all started asking questions at once. Tony started answering them.  
“Oh, don’t you start on me, too! Look, I’m fine, all right?”  
“Bull. Stay where you are and let the doctors look at you.”  
“Fine.” She rolled her eyes. I decided to stay with her, just in case she tried to walk away again. My powers can only do so much, especially when I’m healing people with the survival instincts of a cat climbing on the edge of a bathtub.  
***  
I was sitting in my room, watching funny videos and pretending to do my homework, when my dad burst into my room. I had set up my desk so that I was facing the door, so at the first hint of movement, I closed out the tab with the videos and started working on a lab report. My dad tapped the desk to get my attention.  
“Why do you have your hearing aids out?” He signed, right before gesturing to my hearing aids, which were on the table next to my computer.  
“It’s easier to focus write if there are no sounds to distract me,” I replied.  
“But how can you hear the videos that you’re watching if they’re out?” He then pointed to the bottom right corner of my computer screen. I smiled up at him apologetically. Internally, I was kicking myself. I’d forgotten to turn the volume down. “Don’t lie to me.”  
“Sorry, dad,” I signed slowly with another apologetic smile.  
My dad’s expression turned serious. “Mom and I have a mission. We’ll be back by morning at the latest.”  
“A mission? I thought you were done with missions.”  
“This is important.”  
“But–” I began. He covered my hands and shook his head. My spirits sank. I’d grown up moving from town to town while my parents did hero work. They’d only ever come home for breakfast and dinner. Once, they’d even sent me to a boarding school for a year before we moved again. When we’d moved to Jamestown two years ago, they’d promised me that they were done with being heroes. I didn’t mind them doing hero stuff, I was just mad that I’d believed that they cared about me more than they cared about being heroes. I turned to my computer and kept typing. My dad tried getting my attention a few more times, but I ignored him. He walked out of the room. A few minutes later, my mom came in to say goodbye, and then they were gone.  
My phone buzzed in my pocket, making me jump. I was glad that no one was around to see that. I shook it off and looked at my phone. The number was unregistered. Meet me at Hammond Pond Park.  
Hammond Pond Park is a small pond in Jamestown’s North end. It had a small area of grass to stand on, a few benches, and water that you most certainly would not want to swim in. There was no one there, so I decided to give them five minutes. Just before I was about to leave, a figure turned the corner onto the street. They walked gracefully, and I bet that they could sneak up on just about anyone without being detected. I recognized the gait instantly, even through an obvious limp, but pretended not to. If I let this person know that I knew who they were, they wouldn’t tell me what they wanted to tell me, they’d just tell me what I wanted to hear.  
I stood up and put my hands in my pockets as I waited for her to walk through the gate. She was dressed in all black, and she had a black scarf covering half of her face and a black baseball cap covering the other half. That didn’t hide her dark brown eyes or her dirty blonde hair. “So, what’s all this about?” I asked. She shook her head, and I shrugged and signed the same thing. She held a piece of paper out to me. It was a typed message. “And why didn’t you just send this to me over text?” She gestured at the paper with her free hand. “Aren’t you hot in that?” She rolled her eyes and shook the paper in my face impatiently. I scoffed and read it aloud.  
“Adrien Walker. Would you like a lot of money? Yes or no?” This was followed by two boxes, one under yes and one under no. I looked up. “Really? I feel like you’re asking me to prom or something, what with the whole checking the boxes thing.” She didn’t respond. I cleared my throat and looked back at the paper. “I can give it to you. All you have to do is work with me. If you refuse, you’ll have the Silver Wolf as an enemy.” I held out my hand. “Pen.” She didn’t move. “Come on, I know you have one.” She slowly reached into her pocket and took out a pen. I started writing on the blank space underneath the message, then checked the ‘yes’ box.  
The note I wrote was short and simple. Charlie Owens, you’re horrible at keeping secrets. Don’t worry, I won’t tell. She read it quickly, then tore her scarf off.  
“What gave it away?”  
“You need to change your gait. It’s too recognizable, even through the limp. By the way, would that have anything to do with the shooting in Newport? I saw Tony on the news.”  
“Yeah, but I wasn’t the one with the gun. I was planning on robbing the place later, but then I ran into Jayden and Tony.”  
“Regardless, shooting yourself in the foot would have been a stupid move that only you could make.”  
“Thanks,” She said dryly. “So, you’re in?”  
“Yep. I’m broke and I’d love to stick it to my parents. It seems like they love their hero stuff more than they love me.”  
“Oh, by the way, you’re getting a disguise,” Charlie said. “Blowing your cover means blowing my cover.”  
“I’m not wearing a scarf, though.”  
“Of course not. Just wear black clothes and bring a bandana or something.”  
“Deal.” We shook hands, then walked back home. Charlie took the long way around so that it wouldn’t look like we were walking together. The whole time, I was questioning Tony’s sanity. Or, at least, his brain power. I mean, Charlie was horrible at disguising herself, and she was really close friends with him, so you’d think that he’d have known by now, right? Wrong. He didn’t know.  
How in the hell does this boy have an ‘A’ in math? He can’t even put two and two together. I thought to myself. I shook my head. I can’t believe we put our lives in the hands of this absolute friggin’ moron.


	5. Grounded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incoming Gayness.  
> In which Victor finally notices that he's gay for Adrien, and Amber gets grounded.  
> Also: ANGST

After Victor and I got back home, he went to his room to practice his music. I went out to the backyard to practice controlling my powers. To any other person, when I reached out to touch the side of the shed that was shrouded in shadows, it would look all physical. In reality, I was reaching out with my mind just as much as I was with my arm. In my earliest memories, I was a normal-looking kid. When I turned ten, I started to notice the shadows surrounding me. It was like a penumbra, except instead of just being a shadow, it was a part of me. I connected my shadows to the shadow on the wall and imagined another shady place. I’d learned a while ago that, by doing this, I could teleport using shadows. It always took a lot of energy though, so the furthest I’d ever teleported before was across the yard, and even then I’d passed out the first few times I’d done it.  
At the last second, some kid in the yard behind me shouted “HEADS!” I assumed it meant ‘heads up’ but at the time I immediately thought of Head’s Beach, which was about two blocks west of my house. A split second later, there was warm sand beneath my feet and I heard the sound of waves crashing on the shore. My view was partially blocked by the branches of a tree. For the first few seconds after I teleported, my vision swam. My head was pounding so hard that I could’ve been five feet from a drum line made up of fifth graders and I would still have less of a headache than I did now. I fell to the ground, completely unconscious, within ten seconds.  
I woke up just in time to catch the sunset. I swore under my breath and wiped the sand out of my hair and clothes. I would probably get grounded if I stayed for much longer. I struggled to remember what time it had been when I’d teleported. It had been five thirty when we’d gotten out of the car, so if it was six o’clock now, then I’d have only been gone for half an hour. I hoped that I’d only been out for that long. I stood up and started running back home. I only made it a few steps before I collapsed again. The sun was too bright. I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples to try to stop the headache. I shivered. It was cold.  
My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Victor. I had five missed calls from him, three from my mom, and two from my dad. Oops. “Hey, Vic,” I said.  
“Where the hell are you? We’ve been trying to get a hold of you for the past hour!”  
Well, I was close enough with the time. Only half an hour off. “Er, I’m at Heads.”  
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”  
“Because I was sleeping.”  
“Amber, are you alright?” Victor asked. I laid down in the sand and threw my arm over my face to try to keep the sun out.  
“Yeah, yeah. I just tried to teleport and...I dunno. I got distracted.”  
“Alright, stay where you are. I’ll come and get you.”  
“Mm-hm.”  
“Are you-are you sure you’re alright?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Just stay there.”  
“You already said that,” I said. The phone clicked. I scoffed, then said to myself, “he hung up on me!” After a minute, I decided that I should probably stand up so Victor wouldn’t be so worried when he came to pick me up. I got to my feet with a long-suffering sigh and waited for my brother. A few seconds later, he parked his car and got out.  
“Mom and dad are going to kill you.”  
“Why’d you even get out of the car?” I asked, ignoring the obvious fact that my brother had just pointed out. “I’m literally ten feet away.”  
“I got out because you look like a walking corpse and I don’t want the neighbors to think the friggin’ zombie apocalypse is starting.”  
“Ouch, bro. That hurt.” I got into the car, trying to hide the fact that it felt like my head was currently trying to detach itself from my body. Of course, hiding stuff from Victor is similar to a child hiding a pet from their parents. And by that I mean, it’s almost impossible.  
“How bad is it?” He asked me in a sort of I’m done with putting up with your stupid crap tone.  
“Bad,” I admitted, massaging my temples. “Really bad.”  
“Well, that’s your fault.”  
“Thanks, Vic.”  
“Really, I mean it! You shouldn’t have been practicing your powers in the first place, you know it’s illegal!”  
“Of course I know, Victor, I’m not stupid! I told you, I got distracted!”  
“How did you get that distracted?”  
“Some kid yelled ‘heads’ and I thought of the beach,” I said. Victor stared at me for a second before turning his eyes back to the road.  
“You friggin’ idiot.”  
“Love you too,” I said. Victor pulled into the driveway.  
“You’re lucky I passed my license exam, or else dad would’ve had to come to pick you up.”  
“Ugh. Speak of the devil,” I said, pointing at the open front door. Our father was standing on the front steps with his arms crossed.  
“You are so dead,” Victor said. We stepped out of the car and waited in front of it for Dad to say something. I leaned on the hood of the car and did my best to look sorry.  
“Amber May Williams, you’re grounded.” Was all my dad had to say about the event.  
“What? That’s not fair!” I said, chasing him inside. “I made a mistake!”  
“A mistake that could have gotten you arrested!”  
“But nobody saw me!”  
“And if someone was there?”  
“But no one was there, Dad!”  
“That’s enough. You’re grounded for one week, now go to your room or it’s two.”  
I looked at Victor, silently pleading for help. He could usually get me out of being grounded, just like I could get him out of detention just by talking to the teacher. He looked at me apologetically. I spun back around to face my dad. Victor quickly moved behind him and shot me a warning glare. He knew exactly what I was about to do, and he was trying to save me from myself. At that moment, I knew he was right, but I didn’t care.  
“You wouldn’t have reacted this way if Damien was still around!”  
***  
Damien Williams. Our older brother by three years. The glue that kept our family together. He’d died in an accident while trying to play hero a year ago. As soon as Amber said his name, a silence fell on our house. It even sounded like the outside noises had stopped, as if the entire world was holding its breath, waiting to see how my dad would react. I widened my eyes and made a cut it out gesture.  
I got my powers from Dad. Amber got hers from Mom. Damien had been lucky enough to get both. A shapeshifting shadow bender is a dangerous enemy, but he’d overestimated himself. He had been chasing some car thief in Providence, but the thief was smart and strong. Like, ‘pick up the car he stole like it weighs nothing’ strong. And he’d been doing just that when Damien caught up to him. We got the news the next day via the news: Damien had been crushed by a car. The guy had been caught. And that was it. End of the story.  
The reporters hardly treated him like a human. They seemed to forget that he had a life. A family. And to everyone else, he was just another face on the screen. And the world kept spinning as if nothing had happened. And people forgot about him. He just became one of the many hero-related deaths. And Amber bringing him up now wasn’t cool.  
“Three weeks,” Dad growled. “No phone.” He held out his hand, and Amber slowly handed her phone over. I knew that she’d gone too far. By the look on her face, she knew it, too. “Go to your room.” Amber trudged down the stairs, and a second later I heard her door shut.  
“I was going to go study at Charlie’s,” I said quietly. Dad nodded. I grabbed my bag and got back into the car. I took a left at the end of the street, heading away from Charlie’s house. I was just driving. I needed to clear my head.   
And somehow, I found myself at the cemetery in the woods, where Damien was buried. I could see his name through the windshield, front and center. Just another name. Just another chunk of rock marking just another dead person in the cemetery. And slowly, very slowly, it became blurry. It wasn’t until I felt a tear roll down my cheek that I realized I was crying. I stepped out of the car and walked up to the grave, then sat on the ground next to it. The date of his death was right under his name. March 27th, 2066. One year ago today, he’d died. I took a deep breath.  
“Hey, Damien,” I said. “So, like, I’ve never really believed in the afterlife or God or stuff like that, but I just...I just needed to talk.” My voice broke on the last word, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. I let it all out. All of my frustration at Amber, at the guy that killed Damien, at the whole world and the state it was in. All of my fear for Tony and Charlie, because I never knew if they were safe when I couldn’t be there. All of my anger at myself for never coming out to my parents sooner because now I have a crush on a guy and there’s nothing I can do about it and what if they hate me for it and–wait a second. I thought. I have a crush on a guy? Well, it can’t be Tony. He isn’t my type. Neither is Jayden. Besides, even if they were my type, Tony’s taken and Jayden is in love with Charlie. So...who could it be? I tried to shake the thought out of my head because I wasn’t here to have some sort of gay crisis, I was here to mourn my dead brother. But all I could think about all of a sudden was Adrien. No, it can’t be him. It can’t be. He’s just a friend.  
Yeah...he’s just a friend that I think is really cool and I want to hang out with him all the time. And I want to hold his hand on the beach as we watch the sunset together. Oh, no. I’m gay for Adrien. I realized. I am so screwed.


	6. The Missing Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to warn you whenever there's angst.  
> There is a LOT of angst in this book.  
> Good luck, my dudes.

Charlie’s offer was generous, but her fashion sense was disastrous. All black clothes in the middle of March? How did she not melt? I was already pretty close, and we’d only been outside for ten minutes. “Oh, stop whining. It’s March. It’ll get a lot cooler once the sun sets,” Charlie was saying. I glared at her.  
“It better, or I might have to reconsider our agreement.”  
“Don’t you dare.”  
“Whatever,” I scoffed. It was the day after she made her offer to me, and she’d already found a target. “Who’s our mark?”  
“Hmm? Oh! Yeah, uh, it’s a...complicated one.”  
“What have you done?”  
“Me? Nothing yet. But we are going to rob a place on Seaside Drive.”  
“You’re joking. Those houses are worth, like, a million bucks! They’ll have security systems, you know.”  
“And that’s what makes it more fun,” Charlie said. “What’s the use of robbing people if there’s not a little danger?”  
“Um, the money?” I suggested.  
“Oh, yeah, that too.” She waved her hand dismissively. We were sitting in my backyard, waiting for the sun to set.  
“This is all a game to you, isn’t it? You don’t even care about the money, as long as you get the thrill, right?”  
“I mean...you’re not wrong,” Charlie replied. “I don’t need the money.”  
“So what do you do with the money, then?”  
She shrugged. “Dunno. I usually anonymously give it to Chris. He once said that he’d move to North Kingstown if he couldn’t pay the bills, but I like living on the island, so I just...help him out a little. Now that he knows it.”  
I scoffed. She’s not half as evil as I thought she was. Plus, she has a motive. I would have walked away right now if she didn’t have a motive. “Well, then, let’s get to it.”  
***  
Tony was waiting outside my house again after school, an expectant smile on his face. I didn’t know whether he was going to flaunt his new haircut or ask me to go on another mission with him. One look at the sparkle in his eyes told me that it was the latter.  
“No.”  
“Aw, come on, Jay! You know you want to!”  
“I’ve got homework to do, man! Besides, I don’t wanna get shot at again!”  
“You won’t get shot at,” Tony pleaded.  
“Not gonna happen!”  
“Fifty bucks says otherwise,” Tony said, pulling a fifty dollar bill out of his pocket.  
I thought about it for a second. “Alright, fine, but only because I need a new pair of basketball shoes.” I took the fifty and went inside to get changed.  
***  
The alarm went off within five seconds of us getting inside the house. “I thought you disarmed it!” I said. Adrien shrugged.  
“I thought I did, too!”  
“If we run into Tony, you need to change your voice.”  
“Whatever. Let’s go!” He grabbed an expensive-looking bracelet off of the counter. An expensive-looking car was already pulling into the driveway, and I could hear sirens in the distance. I went to grab my backpack, which took a bit longer than expected because it was three rooms away.  
“Stay right where you are, Silver Wolf and...and friend!” Tony was standing in front of the garage door, effectively blocking our escape.  
I groaned. “How did you even get in here? The front door is barricaded!”  
“The windows aren’t.” That was Jayden, blocking our way into the kitchen. I rolled my eyes.  
“Since when do you have a partner, Inferno?”  
“I could ask you the same question,” Tony said with an infuriating smile. I glowered at him.  
“So, are you gonna try to arrest me, or are you gonna stand there and make small talk?”  
“Careful what you wish for, villain.” Tony lunged at me, fires blazing up to his shoulders. I leaped out of the way, barely escaping a fiery doom. Not that Tony would kill me, anyway. He doesn’t have the guts. Then again, neither do I. I like to act all tough and stuff, but I’ve never actually killed anyone. There’s a fine line between ‘criminal’ and ‘psychopath’ that I'd prefer to stay away from.  
I managed to jump into the garage and slam the door on Tony’s face. He burst through it a second later, and I punched him in the jaw as hard as I could. He went out like a light. Adrien met me in the back of the house. “They have a dingy at a private dock! Let’s go!” He said. A brief moment of panic made me stop in my tracks.  
“No. We can’t go on the boat, there’s no time to start it up!”  
“Yes, there is. You knocked Tony out, and Jayden may or may not be locked in a cabinet in the kitchen.”  
“How did you lock him in a cabinet? He’s stronger than you.”  
“But I’ve got powers that are useful in a fight. Speaking of–” He blasted me with a beam of light. The last thing I heard before I passed out was Adrien saying “Son of a…”  
***  
I somehow managed to drag Charlie into the boat and start it up. It was hardly big enough for the both of us. I was sitting on a small crate near the back so I could steer and she was laying on the floor. We were halfway across the bay when she woke up. Her eyes widened and she clung to the side of the boat as if her life depended on it.  
“ADRIEN WALKER YOU PIECE OF–” We were nearly capsized by a wave that was a bit bigger than I’d anticipated and she screamed and hugged the side tighter. I turned the boat north so that we were going with the waves. That was odd. Normally, the choppier side of the bay was the east side.  
“Are you afraid of the ocean or something? There are no sharks in the bay if that’s what you’re so scared of,” I shouted over the wind.  
“That’s not it!” Charlie yelled back. Then she said something that I couldn’t quite make out.  
“What was that?” She repeated herself, but I still couldn’t tell what she was saying. I asked her to repeat herself a few more times, but after the third time, she just wouldn’t respond to me. That’s one of the many downsides to being deaf: if there’s a lot of other noise and the person you’re talking to isn’t looking at you, it’s a million times harder to hear what they’re saying. Whatever she was saying, it made her sad, judging by the look on her face. We were nearing Head’s Beach, so I banked right. Charlie cursed me out for the sudden change in direction, but I just pressed on. She seemed to calm down a little bit when we got into the calmer water that was protected by the rock jetty. I dropped the anchor as close to the shore as I could get, and we both jumped off the bow into the sand.  
“If you ever tell anyone that I’m afraid of the water, you’ll regret it,” Charlie said. I just shrugged. “I mean it, Walker!”  
“Whatever. I won’t tell.” I left her standing on the beach. Whatever it was that made Charlie so scared was her personal problem. I didn’t look back to see if she was following me.  
The sound of screeching tires at the top of my street made me jump. I whirled around, and there was Victor, sitting in his car with a terror-stricken expression. I walked over to his window.  
“Why are you in such a rush?”  
“Er, no particular reason. Sorry about that,” Victor said sheepishly. His cheeks matched the color of his hair, which was the same color as his tail lights.  
“It’s alright,” I said. “Just next time, finish the job so I don’t have to do finals.” He laughed at my joke, even though it wasn’t particularly funny. I found myself smiling and blushing as I walked away. There was something about him that made me melt inside. I thought of his stupid, contagious laugh and his stupid dimples on his stupid handsome face and I had to physically restrain myself from giggling like a little schoolgirl.  
I opened my door loudly, expecting to get yelled at by my parents, but no one was home. In fact, there was no sign that my parents had come home at all. I decided to do some research. After I changed my clothes, I rode my bike downtown (not an easy task, seeing as it’s nearly a mile and I am not physically fit) and found my parents’ car parked downtown. It was being towed.  
“Hey, what’s going on here?” I asked the police officer standing nearby. “That’s my parents’ car!”  
“Well, it’s been here for two days. We had no other choice.”  
“My parents are the Walkers! They’re not going to be happy at having their car towed!”  
“Can you pay the fee right now?”  
“Well, no, but–”  
“Then go find your parents.”  
“Alright, I will!” I stormed off and rode my bike back home. The whole time, I was wondering what happened to my parents. They were the best heroes in America as far as I knew, so they couldn’t have been defeated. They must have just underestimated the amount of time it would take to complete the mission. Or maybe they were just chasing after the bad guys. Yeah, that must be it.  
But my parents had actually said goodbye this time, so they must have known it would be dangerous. They never said goodbye to me. It was usually just a note on the counter. I’d figured that the goodbyes this time were some sort of apology for going off on hero work after they’d promised they were done.  
In the end, I knew I needed help, so I went to the only people on the entire island I knew I could trust. I decided to wait until tomorrow. As soon as I got off the school bus, I packed my bag for an adventure. And then I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.  
***  
“Maybe we’re supposed to meet the wrong people. Maybe we’re not meant to be. Maybe we’re satellites, waiting to be set free. Maybe we’re–” I was in the middle of singing the opening to a new song when someone knocked on the garage door. Charlie stopped playing and opened the garage door. She held a drumstick at the ready. I was just thinking about how useless it would be as a weapon when I saw who was standing outside.  
“Adrien?” Victor asked, setting his guitar down. “What’re you doing here?”  
Adrien looked worried. Honestly, him showing any emotion at all was troubling enough. The fact that he was scared in any way was even worse. “I need your help.”  
Ten minutes later, we were sitting in Charlie’s living room. Adrien was sipping a glass of iced tea and the rest of us had coffees.  
“Okay, so what makes you think that they’re not just...chasing the bad guy down?” Tony asked.  
Adrien managed to look even more scared if that was possible. “I thought that at first, too, but then...” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and turned it on. I didn’t think it was a good time to comment on the lack of a password on his phone. “...I got this message.”  
“Adrien, you are at the top of this phone’s ‘most contacted’ list,” a deep voice said, “so I can only assume you’re important to these people. I have them in my possession. If you want to see them again, you’ll track down Inferno and bring him to Rose Island via the three fifteen trip on the Newport Ferry tomorrow. I will send one of my...followers to meet you there. You two will come alone, or I will destroy this phone and you’ll never hear from your parents again.”  
“Rose Island, huh?” Jayden asked. “Vic, you’re good at hacking stuff. Can you trace the call?”  
“I can try.” He reached out for the phone. For one brief moment, their fingers brushed together, and they both pulled away quickly, blushing. I rolled my eyes. Why couldn’t they just ask each other out already? I could tell by the look on Charlie’s face that she was thinking the same thing. She raised an eyebrow at me, and despite the situation, I couldn’t help but smile at how uselessly gay my brother was for this boy. I took a sip of coffee to hide my grin.  
Meanwhile, Tony had taken charge of the situation. “Right. We’ll need a plan. I think we should go in teams of two, and you guys can all go to Rose Island on the one forty-five ferry and wait at pre-planned positions all on the island. So I was thinking that Amber and Victor could go together, since it’s not too strange to see siblings going somewhere together, and Charlie and Jayden can go somewhere else and pretend to be doing a photography project for school or something.”  
“Wait, wait,” Charlie said. “I can’t go to Rose Island.” Oh, that’s right. I thought. Charlie’s afraid of boats. A long time ago, she’d told me what happened to her birth parents. Charlie was only six at the time. She’d been on a new dingy with her parents, one of the first times it had been on the water. They’d crashed head-on into some drunk frat boys’ speedboat. Everyone from the speedboat survived. Charlie’s parents did not. The incident left her with a crushing fear of being on a boat and a painful-looking scar running from her left shoulder all the way down her back.  
“Why not?” Tony asked. “This is important.”  
“I...er...I had something else to do.”  
“What could be more important than helping Adrien get his missing parents back from this psycho?” Jayden asked.  
“Yeah, Charlie, what could possibly be more important?” Something in Adrien’s tone made me wonder just how much he knew about Charlie. “It couldn’t be your...job, could it? Surely that’s not more important than family.”  
“Wait, what job?” Tony asked. “Since when do you have a job?”  
“Oh, isn’t it that job at that new restaurant that just opened up?” I prompted. Charlie shot me a quizzical glance, and I raised my eyebrows at her.  
“Uh, yeah, it’s that. I can’t be late…” She said, wincing at her own horrible acting skills. How did she manage to keep anything a secret from Tony, again? She’s not exactly a great actress… I thought.  
“Bull. You’re coming. I can talk to your boss tomorrow,” Tony said. Charlie squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose.  
“Okay, this is going to end in disaster if I don’t say it now. I can feel it,” she said. “Guys, I have to tell you something, and when I’m done, you might all hate me forever.”  
“Oh,” Tony said. “Oh. Charlie, you know we’ll accept you, no matter who you like–”  
“What?” Charlie asked. “No. No, it’s not that. It’s…” she took a deep breath. “I-I’m the...the Silver Wolf.” She waited, looking like she expected us to throw hands.  
“Oh, we knew that already,” Jayden said nonchalantly. I was keeping an eye on Tony. He was so shocked, I could practically see an ‘error’ sign behind his eyes.  
“You...what?” Charlie asked.  
“We’ve known for a while now,” Victor said. “Well, everyone except for Tony.”  
“And...and you never said anything?”  
“Oh, no, it’s much more entertaining to see you and Tony go at it without knowing that we know,” I said.  
“That’s half the reason I agreed to work with you in the first place,” Adrien said pointedly.  
“Same. I probably wouldn’t have worked with Tony without that knowledge,” Jayden said. Tony blinked, and the error sign went away, replaced by a burning hatred. I shuffled away from him, knowing that this was going to be bad. It would have been better if Charlie just hadn’t said anything.  
“Tony…” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He brushed it off.  
“You what?” He growled, whipping his head towards Jayden so fast that I was surprised his neck didn’t snap. Since I was sitting between Tony and Jay, I could see the fire burning in his eyes (metaphorical fire, not literal fire, thank God). It made me uneasy. But what was worse was that, in the next few seconds, the fire smoldered out, leaving nothing but pain and betrayal. “You–you lied to me? Jay, we’re supposed to be friends.” He turned to Victor now. “You, too. How-how could you guys do this to me? And to protect a thief? What were you thinking? She’s obviously not opposed to hurting people. What if she hurt one of you?”  
“I would never–” Charlie began. Tony talked over her.  
“Amber, did you know?” His voice broke on the last word. I tried to look him in the eyes, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t look up from the floor, couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t use my voice. It would have been better if he had stayed mad. At least then I would have been able to look him in the eyes. I’d never seen Tony this sad before, and I didn’t want to see it again. After a few seconds of silence, he said, “how long?”  
“Two years,” Victor said.  
"Five years," I admitted.  
“One,” Jay said.  
“A few days,” Adrien added. “If you care about what I think.”  
“Five years?” Tony asked. I could feel him staring at me. “Amber, five years? You’ve been lying to me for that long?”  
“Hey, leave her alone,” Charlie said.  
“So why did you tell them and not me?”  
“What? No, I didn’t tell them. I didn’t even know that they knew until just now.”  
“How do you expect me to believe you? To believe any of you?” He stood up. I could hear some anger creeping into his voice. “I can’t…” He trailed off, looking at me helplessly. “Amber, really? You’re not going to say anything? All those years, and you’re not going to try to defend yourself?”  
“How can I? We lied to you, and that’s it. That’s our fault, and we feel bad, but Adrien’s parents are in trouble.” My voice was wavering. I took a deep breath. “We can talk more after the mission.”  
“You’re still going to help her? Amber, she’s sent more people to the hospital than I can count! Aren’t you curious as to why she would do that?”  
“I’m not going to ask her why. I know why. You’ve met the people she’s robbed. They’re all elitists who would pay the cops to have a homeless person arrested if they got within arms reach.”  
“Are you saying they deserved to have their bones broken and their possessions stolen?”  
“Well, sure it’s a little extreme, but–”  
“A little?” Tony exploded. “A little? You haven’t seen her victims! I have! Broken bones. Bloody faces. Snapped necks. Missing teeth. Torn ligaments. One even had to get his arm amputated!”  
“Okay, that refrigerator falling on his hand was not my fault!” Charlie said. Well, then. I thought. There go my hopes for defusing the situation.  
“Not your fault? Charlie, you dropped it on him!”  
“That was an accident!” Charlie said. I say Jay and Victor glance at each other, then Victor jumped over the back of the couch and went into a small storage closet. I sat down and covered my ears.  
“Oh, it was an accident, was it?” Tony was saying. Charlie opened her mouth to say something, but then two gunshots went off. Victor was standing beside the couch, a small pistol aimed at the ceiling. Charlie stared at him.  
“M-my ceiling,” She whimpered.  
“Sit down,” Victor said, his voice cool as ice. When neither of them moved, he shouted, “NOW!” They sat down quickly. “Tony, we’re not saying what Charlie did was right. We’re saying that she’s our friend, and as long as she doesn’t kill anyone, we don’t care who she is.”  
Tony stared at him for a second. “Is the world really so messed up that people are fine with befriending thieves and defending them against a hero?”  
“And who are you to call yourself a hero? You’ve sent twice as many people to the hospital as Charlie,” Victor said. “You destroy public property with no regrets, and you bring trouble everywhere you go.” I winced. Victor was taking it too far. What he was saying was true, but he didn’t need to word it like that.  
“B-but I help people,” Tony said. “She hurts them.”  
“She does?” Jayden piped up. “Half of her victims become philanthropists after they recovered, and those who don’t end up giving their employees better working conditions. Only about ten percent of her targets don’t change for the better after she hits them.” Charlie stared at Jayden, her eyes full of wonder.  
“Th-they do?” She asked softly.  
“They do?” Tony echoed, his dark eyes narrow and suspicious. Jay nodded.  
“Wait, how did you know that?” Adrien asked.  
“For a while, I was thinking exactly what Tony was saying, so I started...keeping tabs on the Silver Wolf.” He glanced at Charlie with an embarrassed smile. “Sorry.” Charlie looked too confused to be paying attention. By now, Victor had put the gun back in its box and placed the box back on its shelf in the closet.  
Adrien leaned forward in his seat. “So...uh, sorry to interrupt this group therapy session or...whatever this is, but need I remind you that my parents have been kidnapped by a guy who hinted that he has multiple followers? Like, can we get back to the plan now and talk about our feelings and who broke whose bones later?”  
Tony shook his head. “No. No, Charlie’s not coming to Rose Island. Even if she wanted to. I don’t care what your victims choose to do after you’ve robbed them, I want you away from this mission. Obviously, though, it doesn’t matter to you because obviously stealing is more important to you than saving your friend’s parents.”  
“That’s not–” Charlie said. Again, Tony talked over her.  
“Alright. Scrap that plan. I’ll still go with Adrien, but Amber, Victor, and Jayden will stick together. No contact downtown tomorrow, in case this guy has some of his followers watching us.” He stood up. “I’m going home to try to figure out what to do with you.” He pointed at Charlie. “And when I decide, I don’t want anyone to stop me, or else I will treat you like I’d treat anyone else who’s obstructing justice.”  
“You’re not a cop,” I said.  
Tony blinked. “Excuse me?”  
“You can’t just arrest people for obstructing justice. You’re not a police officer, so you can’t even legally use your powers in public!”  
“Unless someone around me is in danger, and that’s the only time I’ve ever used my powers in public.”  
“But you still can’t arrest people!”  
Tony glared at me. “I am a hero. I can arrest whoever I want.”  
The anger swelled up inside me, and I swore the whole room got darker, but I didn’t care. “No, you can’t!”  
“Yes, I can!”  
“Says who?”  
“Says me! If I save people, I can arrest people! It’s that simple! And if you can’t see that, then maybe we can’t be together!”  
“Maybe we can’t!” I said without skipping a beat. Just behind Tony, I could see Charlie’s eyes go wide.  
“Tony, maybe you should–” Jayden said.  
“Well, that’s fine by me! I can’t date someone who sympathizes with a villain!” Tony yelled.  
“And I can’t date an arrogant, egotistical boy who thinks he’s a hero!”  
“Er, guys...” Charlie said.  
“Well, if that’s what you think of me, then why didn’t you just tell me? Were you keeping that a secret, too? What else were you keeping a secret from me?”  
“Just that fact that you’re not as great as you think you are!”  
“Amber, please calm down,” Victor said.  
“At least I never pretended to be popular to make friends! Do you think everyone at school loves you? Spoiler alert, they don’t! They all love me because I am a hero!” Tony said.  
That was the final straw. And it’s not even because he said that I wasn’t popular. I knew that I had my fair share of haters. It’s the fact that he thought that he didn’t. “Oh, you’re playing that card, huh? Well, here’s the thing, Anthony. I know that I’m not that popular, but the few friends that I do have only tolerate you because you’re dating me! Before, you were just another narcissistic, egotistical jerk who thought he was better than he actually is!” It took me a second to realize that Tony was now cowering behind Adrien, whose glow was softer than usual. It took me another second to realize that I was the cause. I’d gotten so mad, I couldn’t even tell that I was using my powers. The entire room was cast in shadows, most of them snaking towards Tony.  
“Amber, your brother told you to calm down,” Adrien said, completely calm. I took a deep breath, unclenching my fists that I hadn't even realized I’d made, and opened my eyes. The room was back to normal. If ‘normal’ meant spinning wildly.


	7. At the Soccer Field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More angst. Sorry. It's just getting started, too.  
> Also, Charlie has a bad habit of running off on her own...
> 
> This one's kinda short, so I'll post a few more chapters today

Amber took a deep breath and promptly collapsed on the ground. Victor looked unsurprised, and for good reason. Amber’s powers drained her of energy, so it wasn’t uncommon to find her passed out in odd spots around her house. Adrien and Jay, however, both jumped out of their seats. Victor quickly explained to them what had happened. Meanwhile, Tony and I squared off once again.  
“I think you should leave,” I said. “Do what you think you need to do to bring justice, but just know that I’m a loyal friend, and if you ever hurt any of them, the next person I send to the hospital will be you.”  
“If you’re talking about Amber, that sounded like a pretty mutual breakup, villain,” Tony growled. And with those happy parting words, he stalked out of my house.  
“He’s going to come crawling back in a while, Charlie. Don’t worry,” Jay said.  
“I’m more worried about your car than I am about my friendship with Tony,” I said. The sound of a revving engine made Jayden look outside.  
“Hey, that’s my car!” Jayden rushed out the door and down the street, trying to catch up with Tony.  
“Adrien, we should go home,” Victor said.  
“But what about Amber?”  
“It’s fine. This has happened before.” I picked Amber up and carried her bridal-style to the stairs. “See you later, guys.”  
“You’re a lot stronger than I thought,” was the only thing Adrien said. Victor gave me a reassuring glance.  
“We’ll get this sorted out. See you at school tomorrow.”  
“Doubt it. If Tony really tries to arrest me, it’ll be before or during school.”  
“Then I’ll call you when I’m on the ferry.”  
“Sure.” I carried Amber up the stairs and put her on top of the bed in the guest room. Then, I went into my room, shut the door, left the lights off, and tried to process everything that had happened. Chris came home a little while later, so I turned the lights on and pretended to do my homework.  
“Charlie,” he began in a tone that told me that I was in trouble. “Why are there holes in my ceiling?”  
“Er, big fight. The whole band chose sides. Victor thought shooting the gun was the best way to shut everyone up,” I said.  
Chris leaned against the doorframe. “Wanna talk about it?”  
“Not really.”  
“Well, let me know if you do.” Then he turned around and saw Amber in the guest room. “Not even gonna ask about her.”  
“I have to go meet a classmate for a project,” I said. “Can you send Amber home when she wakes up?”  
“Sure thing, Charlie. Be back by nine.”  
“Yessir,” I said. I grabbed my bike and rode it downtown. As I rode down East Shore Road, I began sorting through everything that had happened in the past hour. I started by figuring out who was on whose side. Adrien and Victor both seemed pretty neutral, but mostly on my side. Jayden and Amber were both obviously on my side. Then again, Victor had said that he knew that what I was doing was wrong, and Jay only started keeping tabs on me because he didn’t trust me. So I put Jay and Vic in one category, Amber in another, Tony in a third category, and Adrien was directly in the middle. He didn’t seem to care about what was moral, as long as there was a good purpose for it.  
“Is the world really so messed up that people are fine with befriending thieves and defending them against a hero?” Tony’s questions and accusations rang in my ears. “...stealing is more important to you than saving your friend’s parents.” By the time I reached the soccer field, I was crying, so I walked my bike onto the field and sat down where the concession stand usually was–small island means small budget. The concession stand is portable–and cried. I wasn’t even sure what I was crying about. I knew that Tony was in the wrong. I knew that my friends had my back. But still, Tony’s remarks hurt. I wished that I could stop crying. That I could get mad. I’ve learned that it’s easier to be mad at the world than it is to feel bad about yourself. And usually, I could find something to be mad about, but this time I just couldn’t.  
I was getting ready to bike back home when a heavy hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Charlie Owens, is it?” I looked up and took in the red cloak, the scarred head, and the baritone voice that I’d heard in Adrien’s voicemail. Most importantly, I noticed the gun he was aiming at my head. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”


	8. On The Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy angst, a part of Charlie's backstory, and a lot of comedic relief.

To all the little girls who dream of getting locked away so their prince charming can come and save them: dreaming about being kidnapped is a lot more fun than actually being kidnapped. The scary bald guy roughly grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. I considered running, but I didn’t know what this guy’s powers were and how they would help him in a fight. As we walked through the woods surrounding the fields, a dozen or so people in red cloaks emerged from the shadows and joined us. I pressed my home button twice, which was a shortcut for my phone to start recording. Too little too late, I remembered that I’d forgotten to turn my ringer off. And that Victor was supposed to call me. The ringer went off, and the bald guy signaled to a short person near us. And when I say short, I mean shorter than me. The person grabbed my phone and broke it in half with their bare hands. The guy holding me tightened his grip on my arm tight enough to make me gasp in pain.  
Well, there goes my only hope for rescue. I thought. And damn, this guy is strong.  
The guy stopped at a not-at-all cliché white van and threw me inside. I didn’t know whether he was just really buff or if he was using his powers to help him. I didn’t know anything about him. Well, at least I knew what he looked like, which is more than I can say for the other people, whose hoods completely shrouded their faces in shadow. I was on the floor of the van, and the sides were lined with benches, which the cloaked people sat on. The bald leader guy got in the shotgun seat of the van. I looked at the door, trying to judge how hard escape would be.  
“Don’t try it,” someone next to me whispered, making me jump. “You’re thinking of escape. If you value your life, you’ll stop.”  
“I’d rather stop breathing than stop trying,” I growled, punching the guy in the face. Just before I could reach the door, all of the air was driven out of my lungs by an unseen force.  
“That can be arranged,” a second person said. I choked and gasped for breath, spots dancing in front of my eyes.  
“Don’t kill her yet,” the leader guy said. “We need her for…” I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence because I passed out.  
I woke up on a private dock near Heads Beach. I recognized the shoreline on the far side of the beach. My parents were there, getting the dingy ready. The cry of a seagull and the gentle sound of waves on the shore were the only sounds on that otherwise soundless day. “Oh, hey, there’s my brave little wolf!” My dad said cheerily. “Ready to go on a ride?”  
“Yeah! Let’s go!” I cheered. My mom laughed.  
“Alrighty, then, let’s go!” She picked me up and placed me at the front of the boat with my life jacket on. “Hey, Charlotte, say how old you are for the camera!” I turned around so my mom’s camera could see my face.  
“Hi! My name is Charlie Owens and I’m six years old!”  
“And what are we doing?”  
“We’re getting ready to go on a boat!”  
“Yay!” My mom turned the camera off and helped my dad push the boat off of the dock. Once my dad pulled out into the middle of the bay, I noticed the big speedboat leaving a big wake behind.  
“Hey, that boat’s cool!” I said, pointing.  
“And it’s coming awfully close,” My dad muttered. “It’s the college frat boys that live next door, probably.” He tried to get around the boat, but we were already too close. My mom yelled at me to jump. I froze, completely panicked. Both of my parents rushed to save me, and that’s when the boat hit us head-on.  
I snapped awake, covered in a cold sweat, feeling like I was still on a boat. And then I realized that I was on a boat, chained to the floor of what I could only assume was a giant yacht. I could feel us swaying with the waves. It was sickening. I closed my eyes, tried to pretend I was somewhere else. Anywhere else. It didn’t work. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter.  
“A little seasick, are we?” Someone asked. Not just someone. That was my dad’s voice. I opened my eyes and whipped my head around. I heard my mother’s laughter, but it was....different from my memories. Colder. Scarier. My breathing came in short gasps. I didn’t know what was going on. My dad’s laughter joined my mom’s, and they just became more and more twisted until they sounded inhuman. My head hurt as if someone was hitting it with a battle axe. I heard someone screaming, but no one else was in the room. The twisted laughter filled my ears. And then, suddenly, everything was silent. I was left gasping on the floor, wondering if I was going insane. The bald guy was standing in front of me. He seemed amused by my pain and confusion, a sick smile twisting his scarred face. I glared at him.  
“Wh-who are you? What do you want?”  
“I am King, the leader of the Order.”  
“The Order of what?”  
“O-of nothing. We’re just ‘the Order.’ That’s it.”  
“No, no, you have to be the Order of something, otherwise it makes no sense.”  
“It makes perfect sense.”  
“Eh. Not so much.” I smiled at him, knowing that these would probably be my last words if I kept pushing him. The smile was gone, replaced by a scowl.  
“Do you know why I haven’t killed you yet?”  
“No, but I bet you’re close to changing your mind,” I said as brightly as I could.  
“I haven’t killed you because once I capture your friends, Adrien Walker and Anthony Falco, I’ll force you to kill them.”  
I scoffed. “You think I care about them? You have a telepath on your side. I met him in the van. Tony hates me, and Adrien could care less about...well...anything.”  
“Oh? You think so?” He held up a phone. “Mrs. Walker was so kind as to give me her phone. Let’s have a little chat with Adrien, shall we?” He pressed a few buttons and put the phone on speaker. I shut my mouth and went back to glaring at him. Please don’t pick up please don’t pick up please don’t pick up. I thought desperately.  
“What do you want?” Adrien asked. “And why do you want it at ten o’clock at night?”  
Ten o’clock? Crap. I missed my curfew. I thought.  
“Is Inferno currently with you?”  
“No, why?”  
“Oh, I just wanted to hear the panic in his voice when he realized I’d kidnapped his friend, but I guess your panic will be good enough,” King said.  
“What? Who did you kidnap?” Adrien asked.  
“Charlie Owens is currently sitting in my private yacht.”  
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “Proof?” Adrien finally asked.  
“Charlie, say something.” King shoved the phone in my face. I kept my mouth shut.  
“I swear to God if one of your guys does a bad impression of Charlie’s voice I will physically reach through the phone to slap you for your stupidity.” Adrien sounded brave, but the slight waver in his voice told me otherwise. King slapped me across the face so hard I nearly passed out again. Pain exploded across the right side of my face and I spun to the left, landing on my back.  
I did what any normal person would do in my situation. “Burn in hell,” I growled, tears welling in my eyes. I rolled onto my stomach, then got into a sitting position.  
“Charlie, what the hell?” Adrien asked, an edge of panic in his voice, just as King had hoped.  
“Do you get high on this or something? Just...hurting other people?”  
“No, just hurting heroes.” King hung up on Adrien.  
“Trust me, I’m no hero. I’m nothing. I’m just a common thief.”  
“Charlotte, you’re more heroic than you know. You’ve got the heart of a hero, but the mindset of a villain.”  
I lifted my chin, silently challenging King. “I have a heart of stone. Nothing phases me.”  
“That’s what you tell yourself every day, isn’t it?” It was the telepath from the van. “It’s a mantra, and a dark one at that. You tell it to yourself so that you can live with everything you’ve done. The first time you robbed someone’s house, you cried yourself to bed for a week. Over time, you’ve buried your old hopes, your old dreams, your old feelings. Nothing phases you because you bury it down deep and hide it behind a wall. The same goes for your emotions. Let’s see what happens when I take that wall down.”  
Slowly, one by one, memory by memory, I relived the past ten years of my life. There was only a small amount of happy memories. Sailing camp with Jayden. Making friends with Amber and Victor. Teasing Tony about his hero gig, and him teasing me back with my lack of any job whatsoever. I tried to focus on those memories, but the telepath overwhelmed them with memories of my parents’ funeral, and Cody Mills, who bullied me for being an orphan, and all of the sad looks when I had to tell an adult that I only had a foster dad. Of the first time I robbed someone. The first time I realized that the whole world is rigged against orphans. How it treats the poor like criminals and the rich like gods. How it’s so unfair. How it’s frustrating that I can’t do anything because less than ten men have enough money to end poverty seven times and they have the power to do something but they choose to sit in their mansions and do nothing to help.  
The next thing I knew, I was alone in the yacht, sobbing uncontrollably. I managed to stop crying and I looked up. I was back on the private dock. The sun was shining and a seagull cried overhead. My parents were there. I tried fighting back against the telepath, but it was hard. It was like swimming through a half mile of mud.  
“G-get...out...of my...head!” I screamed, my headache threatening to split my head in half. I was off the yacht, being half-dragged through some house I looked out a nearby window, trying to get my bearings. The shoreline looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. As I became more aware of my surroundings, I began fighting back against the people who were holding my arms. They dragged me down, down, into a basement of some sort.  
“Stop...moving!” One of them grunted. Five more people rushed over, and they all struggled to throw me into some sort of holding cell. I landed awkwardly and scraped my hands and knees on the rough stone floor. I stood up, cursing my bad luck, and looked around. Three rough-looking walls and a wall made of metal bars. A giant pentagram on the floor.  
Yeah, that’s not creepy at all. I thought. Along the far wall were a series of chains. And in the dead center, bruised and bloody but definitely alive, were two adults. The woman had Adrien’s stone-cold glare and dark eyes. The man had his sharp jaw and angry scowl.  
“Mister and Mrs. Walker, I presume?” I said. “My name’s Charlie. I’m a friend of Adrien’s.” The woman’s glare turned into a worried glance and the man’s scowl turned into a slack-jawed expression of surprise. Before either of them could reply, the cell door burst open behind me. I jumped a mile and whirled around, ready for a fight, but the earth itself moved upwards, making me lose my footing. King was standing over me, his hand curled into a fist. Smart. The man with geokinesis keeps his prisoners underground. I thought.  
“You’re not staying in here.” He walked out, and the earth moved with him, with small bits of it curling around my arms and legs. Not that I was in any shape to fight back, anyway. I did my best to look mildly annoyed rather than extremely terrified as King dragged me across the basement.  
“It’s not working.” That telepath was at the bottom of the stairs. “You look scared.”  
“You know how annoying you are, right?” I asked.  
“Yes, I do.” Then, after a few seconds of listening to my thoughts, “That language is not necessary, Charlotte.”  
“Don’t call me that.”  
“He’ll call you whatever he wants,” King said. He waved his arm to the far side of a second cell, and the rock below me catapulted me through the open door. I hit the ground and rolled to a stop near the wall, where he chained my hands high above my head. My feet were barely brushing the ground, so my wrists started hurting right away. There was a table covered in sharp objects to my right. a table full of sharp objects. “Now, tell me everything you know about Inferno.”  
“You have a telepath for that purpose,” I said.  
“Yes, maybe so, but there’s no fun in it if we just use him to get information.”  
“Thanks, brother-mine,” The telepath said.  
“Wait, you’re siblings?” I asked.  
“Unfortunately.”  
“Man, I see why you keep your hood up. If I was as ugly-looking as your brother, I’d want to cover my face all the time, too.” I don’t know why I kept insulting my kidnappers. I would probably end up regretting it later–Or now. I thought as King cut my shoulder with a sharp knife. “Ouch! That hurt, you damn–ah!” He cut me again.  
“I would advise you to choose your next words wisely, Charlotte. Now tell me. How do I break the hero you know as Tony Falco?”  
“Why do you care?” I asked. “Planning on asking him out? Because I’m pretty sure that’s pedophilia.” That earned me another cut, this one on the face.  
“I’m waiting for your answer, Charlie!” He growled. I could practically see the steam coming off of him.  
I did my best to match his tone. “Then we’re going to be here for a very long time.”  
***  
Charlie betrayed me. She hurt me. I knew I couldn’t trust her. I knew I shouldn’t care about what happens to her. I knew I should’ve been mad. But when Adrien found us at school the following morning and frantically explained Charlie’s situation and the call he’d received last night in hushed tones, my mind began racing. Charlie getting kidnapped only complicated things. I tried to come up with a plan all day, hardly focusing in any of my classes, but the only thing I accomplished was having an ongoing conversation with myself in my own head.  
What if they’re hurting her? I asked in history.  
They’re psychopaths, they’re definitely hurting her. I answered my own question in advisory (for those of you that don’t know, it’s basically homeroom but it’s in between first and second period).  
What if she’s dead? I wondered in study hall.  
No, they need her for leverage. I replied at lunch (whoever decided to give us lunch at ten thirty in the morning needs to be put in an asylum).  
What if they brainwash her? I questioned in Emerging Tech. (emerging tech? More like dying tech, amirite?)  
That’s entirely possible. I reasoned in German. Amber, Victor, Adrien, and Jayden seemed to have come to the same three conclusions. We were all nervous and quiet on the bus ride home. Jay, Victor, and Amber would be going straight downtown, and Adrien and I would arrive at three o’clock. The plan was in motion, and nothing could stop it now.  
The day was warm and sunny. There was hardly a cloud in the sky or a breeze on the bay. It put me even more on edge as if the sun itself was somehow in on the plot. Adrien and I didn’t talk on the way over. No one directly approached us until we got to Rose Island, but I noticed the captain and the deckhands eyeing us the whole way. As we were getting off, Adrien grabbed my arm and pulled me aside.  
“The three of them are on the boat,” He signed. “They hid in the life jacket container.” I glanced at the captain, who looked confused. He didn't know ASL. That was good.  
“They texted you?” I asked, hoping that I got the signs right. He nodded.   
“Jay’s smarter than I thought. I guess it is possible to be a jock and a nerd at the same time.”  
“Underestimating Jay is a mistake many make and few survive,” I replied good-naturedly.  
“Inferno.” The captain said. I nodded. He turned to Adrien. “And Adrien.” Adrien glowered at the captain. The deckhand pulled out a gun and fired three times in the air.  
“EVERYONE OFF!” He shouted. I recognized his voice. The remaining passengers tripped over each other trying to get off of the boat.  
“The guy from the arcade,” I said, shifting my weight so I was in front of Adrien. “So, can we finally know what we’re up against?” All three of us nearly fell over when the boat started moving again.  
“PAUL!” The guy from the arcade yelled. “I’m trying to look cool in front of the heroes!”  
“TIM!” Paul yelled back. “I’m trying to drive a boat! Shut yer mouth!”  
I cleared my throat. “So, uh, Tim, that’s with all the mafia-style phone calls and the elaborate plan and stuff?”  
“It’s not the mafia, it’s a cult,” Tim replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I shot a questioning glance over my shoulder. Adrien shrugged, completely deadpan. I looked back at our captors just in time to get shot in the face. The second I heard the gunshot, my body erupted in flames hot enough to melt a diamond. The bullet disintegrated, even the melted remains evaporating in the heat. Adrien fell to the deck, swatting at his shirt, which had caught fire. I kept the flames at the same temperature but sized them down a little so I could still look awesome. Tim looked shocked. I raised my eyebrows, looking at the melted stump that used to be a gun in his hand.  
“So, what’s the lesson that we learned here today?” I asked, helping my friend back to his feet.  
“I dunno about the cultists, but I learned to stop standing directly behind you,” Adrien said, brushing himself off.  
“Sorry,” I said.  
“You should be.”  
“Y-you’re not phased by being shot at?” Tim asked, sounding a little disappointed.  
“No, not particularly,” Adrien said.  
“You wouldn’t be the first to aim a gun at me,” I added. I looked in the direction we were headed. “Hey, are we going out of the bay or something?”  
“No,” Paul said with little emotion.  
“What did you say?” Arien whispered.  
“I asked where we were going.”  
“And?”  
“Nada.”  
“Great," he said sarcastically.


	9. House on the Rocks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yeah. Good luck with this chapter.

Being crammed into a life jacket container with two other people–one of them being over six feet tall–is not fun. “Victor, your elbow is stabbing me,” Jayden whispered.  
“I could move if Amber’s foot wasn’t in my face.”  
“What does my foot being in your face have anything to do with your ability to move your elbow?”  
“It doesn’t. Your foot just smells.”  
“I will kick you in the face, so help me God!” I said.  
“Don’t you dare!”  
“Your elbow is still buried in my stomach!” Jayden said.  
“Shh! You’re being too loud!” I snapped.  
“Does that matter? What’re they gonna do, kill us?”  
“Probably,” Victor said.  
“Most likely while they sacrifice us to Satan, judging by what we can hear outside,” I said.  
“Well, I would sacrifice either of you to Satan if it means I can get Victor’s elbow out of my stomach!” Victor and I both shushed him. The boat gently bumped against a dock. There were two knocks from above. Jayden, Victor, and I waited for two minutes and then crawled out of the container. Jayden and Victor bickered some more.  
We were on House on the Rocks, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Jay took the keys out of the boat’s ignition and pocketed them. Then, we snuck into the house. There was a surprisingly small security force, and Adrien and Tony had already taken care of most of them.  
“I wonder why this place has such terrible security,” Victor said. There was a sound similar to thunder, except for the fact that there wasn’t a cloud for miles. The very house seemed to shake. Adrien and Tony were standing at the bottom of a staircase and down poured dozens of people in red cloaks.  
“That answer your question, bro?” I asked.  
“Yes, it does.”  
“Alright, I’ll go down into the basement.”  
“All of you go! I can handle this!” Tony said. And then he smiled at me. That infuriatingly perfect smile where his eyes sparkled and he looked like he’d just been told that Christmas came early. I couldn’t help but grin back. Then I was being dragged down the stairs by Adrien.  
“We’ll put you and Tony through couple’s therapy when we’re done with this mission,” He said.  
“Bite me, mama’s boy.”  
“Love you, too, Williams,” Adrien said. We were at the bottom of the stairs now.  
“Jesus Christ,” Victor whispered.  
“Uh, I don’t think he can hear you over all the occult objects down here,” Jayden said.  
I blinked at the massive red throne. “I think we just stepped directly into hell. And Satan’s chair is empty.”  
“Well, then, it’s time to find whoever’s supposed to sit in it,” Adrien said, taking the lead. The first cell we came to was immediately to the left. I could just barely see two people in the shadows on the opposite side.  
“Adrien?” One of them asked.  
“Mom?” Adrien’s voice broke and his face softened. “Mom! Dad!” There was a bright flash of light, and suddenly he was inside the cell. In his rush, he neglected to mention the huge keychain sitting on top of the throne. Thankfully, there were only three keys on the chain. Obviously, though, I happened to choose the right key last. Jay rushed into the cell. Vic and I were about to follow him when I heard a voice. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere. Judging by Victor’s confused expression, he couldn’t hear it. It was inside my head, and it hurt like hell. I dropped the keys and held my head, trying to make the voice stop. It wasn’t saying particular, it was just screaming like a ticked-off banshee. The noise swelled. I could hear Jay and Victor asking me what was wrong, but it felt...wrong...somehow. Like it wasn’t them asking. And then the voice started speaking words.  
You never really liked Jayden, did you? He always pushed you away when you were around Charlie. And Charlie let him. She left you behind. And now Victor has a crush. And he’s going to leave you, too. Tony already left you. Amber, you’ve opened your heart to the world, and look what it’s got you: pain and misery and being left behind by the people you thought you could trust. You don’t like them. In fact, you hate them. Why should you do anything to help the people who hurt you, Amber? You should hurt them back. And with a power like yours, it would be so much fun.  
“N-no…” I gasped. Honestly, I couldn’t tell whether I’d said it aloud or not. “Victor...help.” The headache worsened, driving me to my knees with a yelp.  
Alright, so you’re too nice to feel betrayal. What about this: you have incredible power, Amber. I don’t see why you’re shutting it all up. Why don’t you just...release it all now?  
The voice was starting to make sense. I don’t know why I keep my power locked away I could be running the world by now.  
But I don’t want to run the world. I never wanted to run the world. I’ve always been fine with other people taking charge, as long as they listened when I had ideas. And that was how Tony and Charlie and Victor and Jayden and Adrien treated me.  
But I do get taken for granted sometimes.  
Keyword: sometimes. And the few who take me for granted end up regretting it eventually.  
‘Eventually’ takes too long. Why not make them regret it immediately?  
Because that’s mean. Everyone deserves a second chance.  
Do they, though? Do they really?  
Yes, they do.  
No, they don’t.  
“GO AWAY!” I shouted. For a split second, I lost focus, and a split second was all the voice needed. The basement got darker if that was possible. I lost all control and I could only watch helplessly as the shadows collected around me, lifted me off of the ground, then exploded outwards towards my friends. However, it was met by...a wall of light. Adrien was facing me down again, and Jay was healing the half-conscious Walkers behind him.  
“Victor, NOW!” Adrien shouted. The headache, which had disappeared when I’d lost control, came back. I fell to the ground.  
“I’m a little busy!” Victor yelled back. He was wrestling with a cloaked figure in the back corner.  
“Alright, that’s the best I can do on your parents,” Jayden said. Adrien only nodded, too focused to reply. He was washing me in wave after wave of pure light. It hurt, but the headache hurt worse. I curled up in a ball, and Jay knelt beside me. “Adrien! We don’t wanna kill her!” Adrien turned his powers off. “Hey, Amber, stay with me, alright? Your brother’s beating the telepath that’s doing this to you.”  
“T-telepath?” I managed. It made sense. What else could have made me do that? The headache sharpened until I thought my head was going to split open, and then it stopped. Victor rushed to my side. A warm feeling spread through my entire body, and I could tell Jayden was healing me. Even after he was done, my breathing was uneven and I was still shaking. Victor pulled me to my feet.  
“You alright, Amber?”  
“No. That was…” Of course, my knees chose that exact moment to give out. Victor caught me by the arm. “Ow.”  
“You used a lot of power in that attack,” Adrien said. He looked pale, and his face was tight with pain. “It hurt like a son of a–”  
“Adrien Walker, watch your language,” Mister Walker warned.  
“Sorry, dad.”  
I looked at the guy laying on the floor. “What now?”  
“We could steal his robe,” Jayden said. “Then we could have Victor turn into him and get Adrien’s parents out because, let’s be honest here, they’re not in any condition to fight.”  
“Good idea,” Victor said. “Now, let’s just hope that this guy’s wearing something under that robe.”  
“No way,” Mrs. Walker said. “I’m not letting a bunch of kids fight our battle.”  
“Mom,” Adrien said. “You can’t even stand without help, and I only know that because you haven’t jumped to your feet and ran to go help Tony yet. I get that you’re famous heroes and all, but you should know when it’s your turn to be saved. Besides, this is nothing my friends and I can’t handle.”  
Mister Walker looked at his wife. “Well, at least he has friends now.”  
“Thanks, dad,” Adrien said sarcastically. Victor had dragged the telepath behind the throne and he was now wearing an oversized red robe.  
“How do I look?” He asked.  
“Like a dork,” I replied. He rolled his eyes indignantly.  
***  
The room had rough stone walls and a pentagram in the middle of the floor. Amber and I were helping Adrien’s parents up. “Where’s Charlie?” I asked. Mrs. Walker pointed down a long hallway on the far side of the basement. Adrien, Amber, and I sprinted down the hallway while Victor turned into the telepath so he could get the Walkers back to the island undetected. I could Hear Tony fighting above us, and I hoped that he was okay. The kid was a good fighter, but he had the common sense of a drunk puppy. We turned the corner and there was Charlie and some guy in a red cloak. Charlie was barely conscious, bleeding from several painful-looking cuts, and she was chained to the ceiling. The man turned towards us when we entered, and he held his hand up as if he was waving at us. But then the floor underneath my feet moved. I overbalanced and fell to the ground. Hundreds of tiny knives cut into my hands as they slid across the rough ground.  
“Jay…” Charlie’s voice was hardly a whisper, but the room was quiet enough for me to hear it. Amber didn’t even have to move in order to command the shadows in the dark room to move. I’d never thought that a short, blonde girl like her could look so intimidating. On the other hand, it made me further question my choice in friends.  
Good God, they’re all so dumb. I thought. Once, just once, I would like to go a full day without some sort of stupid injury happening. I got to my feet, wiping my hands on my pants, and rushed over to Charlie A big red blur flew past me, and the big bald guy crashed into the wall beside me.  
“A little heads up next time would be nice, Amber,” I said.  
“She’s unconscious,” Adrien replied. I nearly died of fright. This kid had an uncanny ability to walk almost silently while still giving off the appearance that he stomps his feet while he walks.  
“We’re gonna have to put a bell on you,” I muttered.  
“Say it to my face, coward,” Adrien shot back. I honestly couldn’t tell if he’d heard me and he was just being weird or if he hadn’t heard me and he was asking me to repeat myself. Either way, the ‘coward’ part made me mad enough to not listen to him.  
“D-i-e.” I fingerspelled.  
“You first,” He said. “Also, help me get to the chains. I can get them off.” I sighed, then lifted Adrien up so he could reach above Charlie’s hands. He held his right hand over the lock and, a second later, some rays of light shone through his fingers, and then the lock was open. Charlie slumped forward, and I caught her in my arms.  
“What the hell?” I asked.  
“I picked the lock using my powers.” Adrien was cradling his hand to his arm. “Unfortunately, using my powers hurts. A lot. So I am actually in massive amounts of pain right now.”  
“Are you clear to walk?” I asked. He nodded. “Good. Now go stand watch. Get Amber to help once she wakes up.”  
“Sir, yes sir.” He gave me a mocking salute. Once he turned to the door, his eyes widened. “Uh, we’re gonna have a bigger problem than a few unconscious teammates in just one second, Jay.” I turned around. Tony was still fighting, and now Victor had joined him at the bottom of the stairs, but they couldn’t keep up with the endless wave of cultists. Amber was just waking up.  
“Okay, new plan. You and Amber are playing defense. Don’t let them get in here while I’m busy healing Charlie, and try to get everyone else over here, too. We can get out using that door in the corner. I pointed to another door near King.  
“That sounds a lot better.” Adrien told Amber what to do, and they stood at the door of the cell. The good news was that Amber, Victor, and the Walkers were fighting their way towards us. The bad news was that creepy-bald-earth-mover-dude was up. And I was near my limit on healing people. See, I can only do so much healing in a day. It’s kind of like I draw bad energy out of them and...into myself, if that makes sense, so if I heal too many people in one day, it starts to take a toll on me (don’t judge me for my word choice, I don’t want to sound like a hippie, it’s just sort of turning out that way). Sleeping usually resets my power limit, but I doubted this guy would sit around and let me take an afternoon nap.  
Wait a second… I thought. If my power is like drawing bad energy out of people and replacing it with good energy, then what’s to say I can’t do the opposite here?  
Common sense. Morals. The fact that I’m not sure what will happen. I told myself. I walked over to the guy, socked him in the jaw, and went back to healing Charlie. After just a few seconds, I began to feel a sharp pain...everywhere. I managed to hold on long enough to heal Charlie to the point where she could walk, then fell to the ground beside her.  
“What sort of Romeo and Juliet-type situation do we have here?” Someone said. I expected it to be Adrien, but it wasn’t. The telepath was back on his feet, his head covered in…  
“Where’d you get another robe?” I asked. “Victor stole it from you.”  
“And I stole it back. Now, you’re going to come with me.” I suppose this is the part where I should have started screaming and crying like Amber, but I didn’t feel too different.  
“Uh, you sure about that?” I asked. He spluttered incoherently for a few minutes, then grabbed me by the collar and propped me up again.  
“You’re going to watch your friend die now,” he said. “King said I could kill her once he had his information.” He picked up a knife off of a table and examined it. “Shame. I was hoping to make this slow, but I’m afraid that if I do, either you or your friends will stop me.”  
***  
Jayden did a good job of healing me. Now, instead of being half-dead, I was only half-conscious. “CHARLIE!” Jay yelled. I snapped awake and rolled out of the way of a sharp-looking knife.  
“Ow. Oh, everything hurts,” I groaned, jumping to my feet. I dodged another attack and found the biggest knife I could. I tripped the guy and cast a glance over my shoulder. “Jayden, you’re not exactly being helpful here!”  
“What do you mean? I healed you, didn’t I? I’m tired!”  
“So am I! Now, get off your lazy butt and help me out!”  
“Fine,” he groaned. He took a knife and walked over to King, who had apparently been knocked out near the far wall. The telepath had dropped his knife when I’d pushed him, so I kicked it out of his reach. Before I had the chance to react, he had my wrist in a vice-like grip. He was digging his thumb into a pressure point on my wrist. My hand went limp for a second and I dropped the knife. I kicked that one away, too.  
“Knife fights aren’t really my forte,” I admitted, kicking him in the face. “Fistfights, on the other hand, are what I’m best at. I let the poor guy stagger to his feet while I got into a defensive position. It looked like I’d broken his nose when I kicked him. I punched him with my front hand, moved to the side, punched the side of his head, roundhouse kicked him in the stomach, then punched his back and his stomach. He doubled over, and I knocked him out. “I should become a boxer,” I said, shaking my hand out. Punching people hurts.  
“Yeah, well, let’s focus on getting out of here first,” Jayden said. King was unconscious yet again, and considerably more bloody. He would have a few new scars when he woke up. There was a sickening thunk and a knife appeared in Jayden’s shoulder. The tired smile fell off of my face. That appeared to be the final straw for Jay’s pain tolerance, as he collapsed on the spot. My vision turned red. I whirled around to face the person that had thrown the knife. The air suddenly became very hard to breathe. It was the guy from the van. I fell to my knees, fighting for breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to focus. The next thing I knew, I was a wolf. The guy stopped using his powers. I could see the question in his body language. What are you?  
I lunged at him with a ferocious snarl. And just like that, I was in the main battle. And just as quickly, it was over. A single gunshot rang out above the fight, and Mrs. Walker collapsed, blood soaking her shirt. Adrien screamed, and I expected a big movie-moment where he won the battle for us. What actually happened was a little different. Some cultist clocked him in the side of a head with a Satanic vase and he fell to the ground. Tony was trapped in a small area with no oxygen. No oxygen means no fire. Jayden and Victor were back to back, quickly drowning in a wave of red cloth. Amber looked like she was fading fast, and Mister Walker was out of my sight. Something big and heavy slammed into me, and I realized that someone had thrown the big throne at me. My head hit the floor hard. I usually have a pretty high pain tolerance, but I was in bad enough shape to begin with.  
I woke up back where I started, chained to the wall. The telepath was standing at the entrance to the room, and King was still holding the knife next to me. They both had their hoods up. I was beginning to wonder if the battle had happened at all.


	10. In The Dungeon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've changed my mind. I'll stop warning you about angst. Just assume that there's some in every chapter.

I woke up chained to the wall. Everything hurt. I looked to the left. Amber was next to me, still unconscious. Next to her was the wall. To my right was Adrien. He was conscious, but he looked like he was in shock. Then Jayden, who was glaring at the cell door, a muscle working in his jaw, and Tony (I would’ve thought he was dead if I couldn’t see him breathing) and then Mister Walker. He looked resigned. Defeated. He’d been in here for days, and now his wife was dead and he was still locked up. After a few seconds, Jay started counting down from ten.  
“...four...three...two...one…” he muttered. I was going to ask him what he was doing, but before the words left my mouth, a loud scream came from somewhere within the basement.  
“Charlie,” I said breathlessly. I was horrified. I didn’t think it was possible for someone to scream that loud.  
“Sixty...fifty-nine...fifty-eight…” Jayden counted. When he reached one, we heard another scream.  
“Ten seconds max to ask a question,” I said. “Ten seconds to wait, and knowing Charlie, she’ll make him wait. Twenty seconds of insults, ten seconds for what she said to sink in, and then the scream.”  
“Sounds about right,” Jayden said. “You think she’ll break?”  
“Charlie Owens? Break? You must not know her half as well as you think you do. That girl breaks just as easily as titanium,” I replied. Jayden’s eyes hadn’t left the shadows at the entrance to the hallway across the basement, but now he turned to look at me.  
“Which is to say, she can break,” Jayden said, “but it’d take a hell of a lot of effort on their part.”  
“Ding ding ding,” I said over another scream. Amber snapped awake.  
“S-someone’s screaming,” she whispered.  
“No, really? We couldn’t tell,” I said.  
“Is now really the time for sarcasm?”  
“What better time for sarcasm than when you’re facing certain doom?” I grinned at her, but she just looked confused.  
“My powers aren’t working.”  
“Special metal,” Mister Walker said. His voice sounded dead. Empty. Hollow. “It blocks your powers.”  
“Bull,” Amber said. “As long as there’s a shadow nearby, I can–” her handcuffs sparked, and she cried out. “...n-nevermind. That hurt.”  
“Told you,” Mister Walker said. Jayden cleared his throat.  
“It’s been a minute,” He said. “And Charlie hasn’t screamed.” We must have waited for five more minutes in complete silence when Tony woke up.  
“What are you looking at?” He asked, looking at the hallway. As if right on cue, the big bald guy walked out of the shadows, dragging something behind him. It was Charlie.  
“No…” The whisper was so quiet I wondered if it had even come out of my mouth. He was holding her arms, and the telepath was holding her legs. Charlie was cut in dozens of places. She looked peaceful. Too peaceful. My brain didn’t register the fact that she was dead until they had carried her all the way up the stairs. And then I was overwhelmed by emotions. The stress of life in general, and of this whole mission and everything that came with it, and pain from Damien’s death consuming me until I thought it would take over. The rest of my friends were crying, too. Even Adrien, who I thought couldn’t possibly look any sadder, was crying.  
Charlie, as infuriating as she is, was like everyone’s big sister. She always looked out for us, always put us before her. She was funny and sarcastic and she was always blaring indie music and showing up late to things and staying up late and making sure we were all okay. Charlie was what made us a great team instead of just another band. And now she was gone.  
The only one who wasn’t crying was Jayden. He was just glaring at the bald guy, who had appeared at the door to the cell. He opened it and moved in close to us. “So,” he said. Who’s next?”  
“You are,” Jayden said. There was steel in his voice that I’d never heard before. Honestly, Jayden was such a pushover, and he hardly ever got mad at everyone. But then again, I guess everyone has to break eventually. His locks popped off. I’d taught him how to pick locks with a paperclip months ago, but I didn’t think he’d actually remembered it. He dropped the paperclip on the ground and stood up. King’s eyes widened.  
Thwack!  
Thud.  
Jayden was rotating his shoulder as if it hurt. Then he turned back to us, holding the giant keychain. He unlocked the cuffs. “Let’s get out of here.” We managed to sneak out, and Jay found that he still had the boat keys in his pocket. We all got on the ferry and pushed off. A crowd of people in red cloaks were yelling at us, telling us to stop, but I just pushed up the throttle. We were beaten, bruised, bloody, exhausted, and too shocked to feel any of it. I managed to steer us into port, where we were met by dozens of news crews who had come to cover the shooting on the boat earlier that day.  
Was it really only a couple of hours ago?  
Ambulances were called, and those of us that needed medical attention received it. Adrien, Mister Walker, Jay, and Tony were rushed to the hospital. Amber and I were lucky. We hadn’t gotten stabbed, shot, crushed, or otherwise seriously injured. However, we were both exhausted, and we collapsed on our beds after our parents had driven us home.  
Who could have guessed that a simple rescue mission could have gone so badly?


	11. The Girl With No Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: Charlie's not dead.  
> She's the main character. I can't just kill her off like that.

Everything hurts. That was the first thing I registered. Pain. I didn’t want to open my eyes. Didn’t want to look. There was a bright light above me, I knew that much. I could hear seagulls, and the waves crashing onto the shore. It was uncomfortably hot. My skin was probably burning. I didn’t care. After a few seconds of waiting, I began to wonder what I was waiting for. Was it...my memories? Yeah, it was probably that.  
Did I even have a name? I could almost remember it, but it was like trying to build a sandcastle with a butterfly net. Which is to say, impossible. I groaned and rolled onto my stomach...and immediately fell down a small cliff. I landed hard on my left shoulder, and for a second, I was landing on a rocky beach in the middle of the night. Odd. I thought. It’s the middle of the day. I somehow managed to stand up and climb back up to the top of the cliff. That’s when my brain decided to shut things down again.  
I woke up again, and the sun was setting. I staggered to my feet. There was a small wooden fence next to me, which I held on to for support. My mind, as well as my vision, was swimming, and I fought off a wave of nausea, which was accompanied by the not-so-sudden urge to crawl under a bush and go to sleep for a whole year. I took a deep breath, leaning most of my weight on the fence. A car’s headlights nearly blinded me. I put my free hand out, trying to block the light. Two girls, maybe in their twenties, stepped out of the van. They looked just as confused as me. One was a brunette with long, straight hair and the other had wild, curly, red hair.  
“Hey, are you all right?” The brunette asked.  
“You’re in bad shape,” The redhead said. “Where are your parents?”  
“I…I don’t know,” I replied. “I don’t...remember.”  
“Well, do you have a phone on you?” The brunette asked. “We could call your parents.”  
I realized I was shaking. I didn’t know what was happening, or who I was, and I just wanted to go home, or to at least remember where home was. “I don’t remember anything. And...and...and I don’t have a phone on me, and e-everything hur–everything hurts and–” I choked on my own tears. The redhead, who was the closest to me, rushed over and caught me when I nearly collapsed again.  
“Hey, hey, it’s alright. We’ll get you to a hospital, and–hey, you drive–” she tossed the car’s keys to her friend “–and we’ll get in touch with your parents or...someone.” She set me down in the back. “Now, I’m a medical student, just so you know–”  
“Oh my God, she doesn’t care if you’re a medical student or not, Cassie!”  
“Would you let me do my damn job, Liz?” Cassie made a 'she’s crazy' gesture at me, but I could see the laughter behind her eyes. “Right, do you think anything’s broken or sprained?” I shook my head. She pointed behind me. “You know how to use the stuff in the first aid kit, right?”  
“I-I think so.”  
“Good. There are few ice packs in the small cooler by your feet. There’s water in there, too. We’ll just drive you to the nearest hospital and see if we can find your parents.”  
“Thank you,” I said. Cassie got in the passenger’s seat and Liz started driving. I must have fallen asleep because I woke up in a hospital bed. My arms and stomach were wrapped in bandages. I expected to be in a hospital gown, but I was still in the same clothes I’d been in on the beach.  
“What?” Liz was saying. “What do you mean?”  
“I mean our computers can’t find anythin’ on her! Even that P.I. that Sharon’s dating couldn’t find her on any database in the states!” Cassie replied.  
“Maybe she’s from out of the states?”  
“You heard her accent! If I had to guess, she’s from somewhere in New England. That’s all I can say.”  
“So...maybe she was homeless?” Liz asked. I sat up slowly. They were standing on the far side of the room. Cassie had her back to me, so it was Liz who saw me first. “Oh, you’re awake.”  
“You hired a private investigator?” I asked, tilting my head.  
Liz and Cassie shared a troubled glance. “Well, we had to figure out where you were from, and he was in the building when we arrived,” Liz said.  
“How long was I out?”  
“You’ve been sleeping on and off for a week.”  
“And...where...exactly am I?”  
“The Phoenix Medical Center in Fullerton, California,” Cassie said. I raised an eyebrow.  
“And you don’t know who I am?”  
“We know just as much as you do,” she said. “Unless you’ve been hiding something from us.” I shook my head.  
“There’s a news crew arriving soon. Hopefully, it was just a glitch in the system, and your parents will pick you up soon,” Liz said. As if on cue, a camera crew burst into the room.  
“...was found on a beach here in Fullerton, California.” A man holding a microphone was saying. “And here she is now! So, tell me, you don’t have any memory of your life?” He shoved the microphone in my face. I blinked in surprise and silently begged Liz and Cassie to help me.  
“Er, no. I d–”  
“Not even your name?”  
“N-no.”  
“And how do you feel?”  
“Confused. And tired. Very tired.”  
“Well, we hope that your family finds you soon. For now, this is Tom Edgerton. Back to the studio!” And with that, they left. Cassie was glaring daggers at their backs and Liz gave me an apologetic smile.  
“Not a whole lot happens here that gets on national news, in case you couldn’t tell.”  
I chuckled. “Well, you’re welcome.”  
“But did they interview the people that found her on the beach? No! I doubt they’ll even mention us!” Casse said irritably.  
“Cassie!” Liz hissed. “Complain later.”  
***  
It had only been a week and a half since Charlie’s death, and everyone else was already back at school, doing homework, and living normal lives. How could they move on so fast? I could barely find the strength to get out of bed, and it wasn’t just because of the stab wound in my shoulder. There was a hole in the wall near the door. When I’d come home from the hospital (the stab wound was the worst injury, and my dad’s a doctor, so they let me come home early) I’d punched my wall. No one said anything.  
There was a knock at the door. “Jay?” It was my younger sister. I looked at the clock at the side of my bed. Since when was it almost noon? “Lunch is ready if you want it. Also...Mister Chris dropped something off for you. Mom says you can get it yourself when you’re ready.”  
***  
I was lying in my bed, staring at the burn marks on the ceiling. After discovering that I only had a concussion, the doctors let me out of the hospital. Last night, I’d nearly burned the house down when I woke up from a nightmare. Currently, I was trying to write a song or do anything to take my mind off of Charlie. I was failing miserably. Amber and I hadn’t even talked since that night. I picked my phone up and scrolled through my contacts, stopping when I landed on her name. I pressed the call button and waited for her to pick up. Before the phone even started ringing, I pressed the end call button.  
***  
I pulled into the driveway. I’d been visiting Damien’s grave again. There was a new name, a few plots over. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her grave. I went downstairs to check on Amber, and she was talking to someone on the phone. A loud knocking came from the door. My parents were at work, and I wasn’t expecting anybody. The knocking kept coming. I opened the door cautiously and found myself staring into Adrien’s wide eyes. His hair was wild and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, but there was a bewildered look in his eyes that made me think something big had happened.  
“Get your sister. Get everyone. Tell them to come to my house. I have big news.”  
“Are you high or something?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.  
“Only on caffeine,” he replied. “Now go!” A big smile broke his face, and he dashed back across the street. After a few seconds of what I could only assume was gay panic, I rushed downstairs and stole Amber’s phone out of her hands. She protested, but I held her back, scrolled through her contacts, and pressed Tony's name.  
"Amber, I'm so glad you–" He began.  
“Tony! Adrien has some big news, and he wants everyone at his house. Get Jayden.” I hung up the phone before he could reply and tossed it back on Amber’s bed. “Get some clothes on. You’re not going to Adrien’s house in your pajamas.”  
“Where are you going?”  
“I look like a hobo, Amber. I’m going to get changed.”  
***  
Chris had dropped off the sweatshirts that Charlie had stolen from me. I was currently wearing the one she’d stolen from me at sailing camp. Tony texted me a million times in the time it took me to cross the room. He was begging me to come over to Adrien’s house, that it sounded important, blah blah blah. I figured I’d go see what all the excitement was about. Besides, my parents were talking about dragging me to my sister’s violin recital. The thing about third graders playing violins is that they sound a bit like dying cats, so I decided to escape from that torture.  
I was the last to arrive. For some reason, Victor looked like he was dressed to go to a semi-casual school dance. Adrien had a wild look in his eye, and I wondered if he’d finally snapped. “What am I here for?” I asked. “Because if there’s no reason–”  
“No! God, no. I hate it when people do things for no reason. So, I was sitting at the table, eating my lunch and drinking some coffee–”  
“Some coffee?” Tony scoffed.  
“Okay, so it was, like, my fifth cup today.”   
“That can't be healthy,” Victor muttered. Adrien plowed on, completely ignoring him.  
“But anyways, I was sitting here, eating my lunch, and, well, you know my dad is doing...stuff.” His excited (and slightly insane) smile dropped a little at that, but he seemed to forget it quickly. “And so I was just watching the news, and I saw this story, and there was this ugly-looking guy on camera and he was in this hospital. I actually wrote down the name of the hospital, if you want it–”  
“Adrien,” Tony said. Adrien looked at him. “Point?”  
“Ah! Yes, I was just getting to that.” He took out his phone and showed us a picture. The picture was bad quality, as expected when you use an electronic device to take a picture off of another electronic device, but it was clear enough that I could see who was in the picture. I took the phone, the other three crowding around me. “She’s alive. Somehow,” Adrien said. I hardly heard him. My mind was racing a mile a minute, and my heart was beating just as fast.  
“Son of a–” I said.  
“She’s really alive?” Amber interrupted.  
“Well, she sounded pretty alive,” Adrien said. “The thing is, the ugly news guy said she had amnesia. And judging by the interview, she can’t even remember her own name.”  
“So,” Tony said, looking up from the phone. “Who’s up for a little field trip?”  
***  
Chris was swamped with work, funeral expenses, and everything in between, and no one else wanted our parents to come, so Jayden ended up driving everyone. When he’d appeared at Adrien’s house, he’d looked a bit like a walking corpse. Now, I could see the life slowly returning. With some help from a large mocha coffee. Adrien was drinking water because we’d told him that he couldn’t have caffeine until we got Charlie back. We were driving my dad’s car–we’d gotten permission to drive it as long as we didn’t crash it. The thing was basically an armored bus. He’d taken a large car that could seat eight people and replaced the whole thing with reinforced doors and walls. The windows were two inches thick. I got the impression that, even if we did crash the car, it wouldn’t leave a dent unless we were going over eighty miles an hour. He called it his ‘Tony-proof car’ (lovingly, of course). I may or may not have a bad track record with cars. It’s the only one that he actually lets me drive.   
Jayden was the only one sitting up front. I’d gotten moved to the middle row five minutes into the ride because I’d changed the channel to a country station. Victor was sitting next to me, and Amber and Adrien were in the back row. Amber and Victor weren’t allowed to sit next to each other because they both gained the mentality of five-year-olds and decided to annoy everyone else in the car when they were next to each other. So that left me sitting next to Victor in the middle and Adrien and Amber sitting next to each other in the back.  
“I have to go,” Adrien said.  
“Seriously?” Jayden grumbled. We were currently stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic. In the middle of Boston. In rush hour. There were no bathrooms in sight.  
“You wouldn’t have to go so bad if you hadn’t downed five cups of coffee this morning!” Amber said.  
“Oh my God, Tony, stop bouncing your knee! You’re practically shaking the whole car!” Victor complained.  
“Am not!” I shot back.  
Jayden looked about ready to shove us all out of the car and into the oncoming traffic. “Hey, here’s an idea. I’ll pull off at the next exit. We can get some snacks, some more drinks–water, Adrien, not coffee–and then we can all go to the bathroom. Once we get back in the car, we can switch up the seating arrangements. Deal?”  
“Deal,” Victor said, shooting me a venomous glare.  
“Fine by me,” I replied. Amber and Adrien were less vocal, only grumbling their consent. I was shocked to realize that changing the seating arrangements would mean that I would have to sit next to Amber. Maybe we could finally talk things out.  
It took us half an hour to find a place to stop, and another fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom and get some snacks. And then we were back on the road again. Amber and I were in the middle row and Victor had joined Adrien in the back. I thought of saying something to Amber but lost my courage at the last second. Finally, I took out my phone and texted her.

TONY: Hey.  
AMBER: Really? I’m right here  
TONY: Yeah, but I’m a coward so here we go.  
AMBER: What is it Anthony?  
TONY: Wow, full name? Did I accidentally run over your dog or something?  
AMBER: I don’t have a dog but if I did you probably would have by now. You suck at driving  
TONY: Thanks. ANyways, I had something I’ve been wanting to say for a while now  
AMBER: Me too but you go first  
TONY: I’m sorry for the way I treated you before we went to House on the Rocks. I was such a jerk, and honestly I don’t know why I said all that stuff. It wasn’t true and I didn’t mean it. I’m not asking you to forgive me or get back together with me if you don’t want to, I just wanted you to know that you’re amazing and I’m sorry if I hurt you.

Amber stared at her phone for a long time. Longer than it would have taken her to read it. I could see a million thoughts race behind her eyes. Finally, she started typing. Then she stopped. Then she started again. Then she erased everything she’d typed and started over.

AMBER: I also said some things I didn’t mean and I’m sorry if I hurt you. And of course I forgive you. We kept secrets from you and everything. Its normal to be mad about that. I do want to get back together with you, but I think we should talk more about this once we find Charlie  
TONY: Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.  
AMBER: No problem. Now, next time tell me this in person, or i WILL throw you out the window  
TONY: Yeah, whatever.

I smiled at Amber as I put my phone away, and she smiled back, somehow managing to melt and stop my heart at the same time. Behind us, Victor made a noise similar to a creaky door. Amber and I both turned around. Adrien had fallen asleep on Victor’s shoulder. The latter looked half a second away from a heart attack.  
“What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?” He asked.  
“Stop being such a useless gay and let him sleep! If you keep making noises, he’ll wake up!” Amber said. I had to cover my mouth to stop myself from laughing.  
“It’s not that simple, Amber!” Victor hissed through gritted teeth.  
“Yes, it is! Now shut up!” Amber said. Adrien shifted in his sleep. Victor looked at us, the panic evident in his eyes, but he stopped making noises and just let Adrien sleep.  
“I’m surprised he can sleep with all that caffeine in his system,” Jayden said.  
“Well, he also looks like he hasn’t slept in a while, so maybe it’s finally catching up to him?” Amber guessed.  
“I mean, probably,” I said. It wasn’t too long until the sun was setting. We needed to find a place to spend the night. It took another hour to convince Jayden that he couldn’t drive through the night. We all wanted to find Charlie, but it would take about four days. We needed to be alert in case we got attacked again.


	12. California

Cassie and Liz had stayed with me all day, trying to help me figure out who I was. Around eight o’clock at night, things started going wrong. Cassie and Liz were getting ready to head home, but then a tall, bald man with a scarred face and a red suit walked into the room, accompanied by one of the doctors. “Cassie, Elizabeth, this is Mister King, who says he’s her dad,” he said.  
“Charlie!” He said, rushing to my side. “I’ve been so worried about you! You have no idea how happy I am that you’re okay!” His words were kind, but there was something about him that put me on edge. His smile was a little too bright, and there was a brick wall behind his eyes, carefully masking any emotion. The name sounded familiar, though. Both his name and the name he’d called me by. He grabbed my hand in what I assumed was supposed to be a fatherly gesture, but it just felt wrong to me. “I’ve been told that you’re clear to leave the hospital now! Are you ready to go home?”  
“Um, can I go home in the morning? I’m kind of tired now,” I said. I glanced at Cassie and Liz. Shook my head gently. He squeezed my hand. I sucked my breath in through my teeth and tried to pull my hand out of his grasp, but he was holding on too tight.  
“Are you sure, Charlie? Wouldn’t you like to go home now?”  
“Er, I’m still very tired, so I think it’s fine if I just spend the night here.”  
“Why don’t you just come with me?” He squeezed my hand even tighter and I cried out.  
“You’re hurting me!” Okay, so maybe I was being a little over dramatic, but I didn’t like this guy and I wanted him out of the room.  
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the patient,” the doctor said. King released my hand and turned to the doctor.  
“She’s my child, I’ll do what I want!” He took a step away from me with each word he said.  
“If she’s really your daughter, you’d do a DNA test,” Cassie challenged. She and Liz had placed themselves between me and King. King backhanded Cassie across the face, shoved Liz to the ground and tried to pick me up. I started fighting. I struck him in the side of the head, and he dropped me back onto the bed. I jumped out of it and put it between me and him. I wanted to get out of that room, but he was blocking the exit. Cassie was unconscious on the ground, and the doctor was beside her, checking for a pulse. Meanwhile, Liz had gotten a hold of a medicine cart, and she used it to ram King into the wall with surprising force. Especially considering the wall was several yards away.  
“Super strength,” she explained when she saw my bewildered expression. Cassie was already waking up. She seemed completely fine, despite getting knocked out only seconds ago. Liz and I helped her up, and the doctor told us to run.  
“He had four friends in the waiting room, so I’ll take you out a back way!” He led us through the hospital, then out through the ambulance bay. “Security has probably already apprehended that man. It’s probably safe to assume that, if he brought four people to the hospital, he probably has more around the city. I noticed that they all wore red suits, so maybe stay away from those for a while.”  
“Thanks,” Liz said. We ran around front and into their car. I leaned against the back of the passenger seat.  
“What the hell?” I asked myself. “What the hell?”  
“Three red suits on the left,” Cassie noted. I looked up just in time to see three men in red suits staring at us.  
I resumed my chant of ‘what the hell’ and Liz joined me. I looked up again, only I wasn’t in the car anymore. I was in some sort of dark room. My arms hurt in ways I didn’t even think were possible. I was chained to the ceiling of a room made of stone. Blood was dripping into my eyes.  
“Now tell me, Charlie Owens, why do you think I’m letting you live?” That was King’s baritone voice. A shiver ran up my spine.  
“I don’t care,” I heard myself say. The whole situation felt...off. Like I was watching a movie that I’d starred in.  
“No, go ahead. Guess. I have Inferno. Why do you think I need you?”  
“Because you’re a sick sadist and you like hurting people?”  
“No. It’s because you made it personal. If you hadn’t gone and done that, you would be free right now.”  
“If doing the right thing is what landed me in this situation, then–”  
“The right thing?” King laughed. “Charlie, you are not a hero. You don’t care about ‘the right thing.’ You’re just confused. I can show you why I’m doing what I’m doing if you’d like.”  
I blinked, and then I was back in the car. It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing all the air out of my lungs, and I struggled to breathe. At first, I thought it was because of the flashback or whatever it was, but then I noticed that Cassie and Liz were having the same trouble. Cassie had stopped the car, and there was a man in a red suit standing directly in front of us in the middle of the road.  
“Floor it,” I gasped with what little air was left in my lungs. Cassie nodded, and she managed to find the gas pedal and get the car moving. She hit the guy in the street, and suddenly we could breathe again. I took in huge lungfuls of air, grateful to be able to breathe again.  
“Did we kill him?” Cassie asked.  
“Does it matter? Just keep going!” Liz urged. Cassie drove for an hour, straight past the beach that they’d found me at. There was a forest near the beach, and Cassie took a right into the forest. She stopped at a large cabin and turned the car off. I rubbed my temples. The whole ride, I’d had a bad headache.  
“Why didn’t you just take us home?” Liz asked.  
“Home? With some sort of creepy cult-ish gang on our tails? I don’t think so!” Cassie said. “Now, everyone out!”  
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I dragged you guys into...whatever’s going on in my life, and now you’re in danger because of me.”  
Liz and Cassie shared another glance. They seemed to do that a lot. It was like they could have an entire conversation in just one second. Then Liz turned to me. “Don’t beat yourself up over it, kid. We can handle ourselves.” Cassie nodded.  
“Now, can we get inside? I’m hungry.”  
“Only if you promise to stay away from the pasta this time,” Liz laughed.  
“Oh my God, that was one time!”  
“How did you even manage to set a pot of water on fire?”  
“Shut up.” Cassie was smiling from ear to ear, despite the fact that she was blushing redder than the sunset. We got out of the car and made it a grand total of three steps before something else went wrong. There was the click of a gun behind us, and all three of us froze.  
I have been cursed with the worst luck in the world. I thought.  
“Next time you run from a person,” King said behind us, “make sure they don’t have any telepaths in the immediate vicinity.”  
“Hello, there,” a second voice said from behind us. I didn’t dare turn around. My headache worsened. Black spots danced across my vision. Just as I was about to pass out, I heard screams and gunshots. After a few seconds, the pressure in my head released. I dropped to my knees, exhausted from the effort of trying to stay conscious. Liz and Cassie were back to back, surrounded by walls of dirt and rock. So, if the shorter guy has telepathy, that means that King was the one that moved the earth. He has geokinesis. I thought.  
“Charlie, you’re going to come with us if you want your friends to live. We’ve already destroyed the hospital and their main house. If you come with us peacefully, they can live,” King said.  
“Charlie, don’t do it,” Liz said. “We can take them. Whatever you do, don’t–” King shot her.  
“Liz!” Cassie shrieked.  
“I only shot her leg. My next shot will be fatal,” King said. I looked between the two men in red suits and Liz and Cassie. Liz was whimpering and crying, and Cassie was trying to calm her down and put pressure on the wound.  
“Let them go first,” I said. “Let them go first and let me know that they got away and I’ll come with you.” King nodded to the other guy. They let Liz and Cassie go.  
“Charlie, don’t do this,” Cassie said.  
“I’m sorry for bringing you into all of this,” I said again. “Now get out of here. Get Liz some medical attention. Please.” Cassie stared at me, long and hard, then finally nodded.  
“We’ll find you again, Charlie.”  
“Make sure you bring some backup,” I replied. Cassie helped Liz into the car and they sped off.  
“You know they’ll never find you again,” the telepath said.  
“Yeah, I know. But it was the only way she’d leave,” I replied. “Now, what do you want with me?”  
King put the safety on his gun and glared at me. “As I said earlier, you made it personal. And for that, Charlie Owens, you will pay dearly.”  
***  
We woke up bright and early. Very early. “Come on, people, let’s go! Up, up, up!” We’d booked two rooms in a motel in Madison, New York, one with two rooms and one with three. “We move so that we can find Charlie!”  
“Jayden, it’s six o’clock in the morning,” Adrien groaned.  
“Exactly! We should have been on the road an hour ago!” We complained a little more, but eventually got up and got dressed. We were driving a little while later, and the song we’d been listening to just ended and now the news anchors were talking. I was watching the world out of the window, wondering how Charlie was and how she’d lost her memory.  
Jayden suddenly turned up the radio. “...Center in Fullerton, California, burned down just last night. This is considered an act of terrorism, because apparently, shortly before the fire started, a man who only referred to himself as King came in and claimed to be the father of the amnesiac mystery girl who appeared on a beach early yesterday morning. Witnesses claim that King, along with several other men dressed in red suits, attempted to kidnap the girl, whose name is Charlie. According to Cassie and Elizabeth Wilson, the married couple that brought Charlie into the hospital, they were pursued and even shot at by several men in red suits, and they stole Charlie shortly after shooting Elizabeth in the leg.”  
That was the end of the story. The car was dead silent, and Jayden turned the volume back down as another song began playing. “What do we do now?” Victor eventually asked into the silence.  
“We can start with the people that last saw her,” Tony said. “Figure out where to go from there.”  
***  
Two days later, we found Elizabeth and Cassie surrounded by news reporters at the charred remains of their home in Fullerton. I knew what they looked like from the news reports. Jayden hadn’t said a word since we’d heard about what happened. Tony was trying desperately to come up with a plan. Victor and Amber were talking with him. I turned away from the group and shouldered my way to the front of the pack. Elizabeth was on crutches, and both girls looked very annoyed with the reporters.  
“No, for the millionth time, we don’t know where she is!’ Cassie snapped, pulling the charred remains of a book out of the rubble.  
“Aw, that was my favorite one,” Elizabeth said, frowning. Cassie tossed it aside.  
“Elizabeth and Cassie Wilson? I’m a friend of Charlie’s,” I said. They looked up at the sound of her name. “I’m here with my friends, including the hero Inferno.”  
Cassie smiled at me before turning to the news crew. “No more questions, please.”  
“They probably kidnapped the girl themselves!” A particularly rude reporter called from the front of the pack. “They’re already gay! What’s one more sin to them?”  
“Uh, excuse me, sir,” I said as politely as I could. I got in his face. “Is that a tattoo on your right arm?”  
“Yes, but what does that have to do with–”  
“Leviticus 19:28,” I said. “You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord. I’m just saying that, if being gay is a sin, and if you’re going by the book–literally–then you might as well go all the way, right?” Cassie and Liz snickered. The reporter blinked.  
“Well, yes, but–”  
“I believe she said no further questions, sir.” And with that, I walked away.  
“That’s gotta be the nicest thing a straight guy’s ever done for us,” Cassie said as we walked away from the reporters. I gasped a little louder than I needed to.  
“Excuse you, I am quite possibly the gayest person in our group!”  
“Think again,” Victor muttered. My brain short-circuited, and I blinked rapidly.  
“Y-you’re...you….you’re gay?” I stammered. Gah, stupid brain! Why’d you go and let me say that? Now it looks like I’m in love with Victor! I thought.  
Because I am in love with Victor. I argued with myself.  
“Dude, even Tony could tell that he wasn’t straight,” Jayden said.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony asked.  
“It means you’re stupid.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew I was saying them, but that covered up the mess I’d just made of myself, so I went along with it.  
“Thanks, Adrien,” Tony deadpanned. Cassie cleared her throat to get our attention.  
“So...this is it? Does Charlie have any family or anything?”  
“She’s an orphan, and her foster dad is one ‘sick day’ away from getting fired, so we came instead,” Amber said.  
“Besides, we’re totally capable! I’m kind of a big deal back home,” Tony bragged.  
“Are you Inferno?” Elizabeth asked.  
“Yes, but no autographs, please–”  
“You’re a lot shorter in real life,” she said. Tony froze, looking for the world like a malfunctioning robot. I laughed but quickly turned it into a cough when Tony came to his senses and glared at me.  
“Can we please get to the part where we save Charlie?” Jayden prompted.  
“Oh! Right. Uh, we can take you to the last place we saw her,” Elizabeth said.  
“Are you sure you’re old enough to drive?” Cassie asked, tilting her head to the side.  
“Ma’am, I’m almost eighteen,” Jayden said. Cassie’s face reddened and she started apologizing while Elizabeth laughed at her.  
A few minutes later, we were driving yet again. Cassie led us to a beach, then took a right onto a dirt road in the woods. We stopped near a large cabin. I stepped out of the car and nearly jumped back in again because of what was at my feet.  
“That’s blood!” I yelped, stepping over it.  
“Probably mine. Maybe Kings,” Elizabeth said.  
“You two seem awfully calm about all this,” Tony said.  
“Eh. It’s not the first time we’ve been attacked. Same routine, different reason.”  
“So this is the last place you saw her?” Amber asked. Cassie nodded.  
“Right about where you’re standing. He’d just shot Liz in the leg, and Charlie said that she’d go with them if they let us go.”  
“And you let her?” Jayden asked.  
“I didn’t want to, but I was scared, all right? I have no idea what’s happening here, and I had even less of an idea when it all happened!”  
Tony took a deep breath. “Why don’t we just tell you everything, then?”


End file.
